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About Granville Perkins
From his home town of Baltimore, Perkins went to Philadelphia to study under James Hamilton (1819-1898). Probably around 1850 Perkins traveled to South America and to the West Indies with a theatrical company where he was able to do studies of tropical scenery. Already in 1856, Perkins began exhibiting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In 1862, he made his debut at the National Academy of Design and during that decade he was working as an illustrator for Harper and Brothers. Perkins traveled to Key West and to back to Cuba after the Civil War and worked on more scenes for Harper’s. He also contributed travel illustrations to Picturesque America. Beginning in 1875, Perkins exhibited works at the American Water Color Society. In 1881 and 1882, Perkins sent paintings to the Boston Art Club.
Marine painting and harbor views would be the focus of Perkins, who continued to submit works to the NAD through 1889. Also in 1889, a feature story appeared on Perkins in American Artists and Their Works, in which Perkins was declared a most celebrated artist. Then we find him active in the Art Institute of Chicago’s exhibitions of 1889 and 1894. Perkins is also known for Florida landscapes, which recall the exoticism of his early travels in South America. In the Vickers Collection, exhibited recently at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach, is Perkins’s Sunset on the Ocklawaha River, dated ca. 1892. Perkins died on 18 April 1895, when the traditional landscape painting he practiced was falling out of fashion.
Tall Cliffs and Rough Sea at Sunset does not appear in the exhibition record of Perkins, however it is a large canvas and an excellent, lively romantic coastal scene executed at the height of his powers. The large section of a mast indicates a shipwreck. The sunset suggests the worst is over and that tranquillity will soon be restored. |
Paintings by Granville Perkins
| Tall Cliffs and Rough Sea at Sunset |
| Oil on canvas, 30 x 48 in. |
| Signed and dated lower left, "G.P. 1870" |
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