Lewis Henry Meakin (1850-1917)
Lewis Henry Meakin (Harry) was born in Newcastle, England in 1850, the son of an English porcelain worker and emigrated to Cinncinnati in 1863 by way of Canada. He was a landscape painter, etcher, and long-time instructor at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.
Meakin studied extensively in Cincinnati (under Thomas S. Noble), Munich and Paris. He was a founding member of both the Cincinnati Art Club and the Society of Western Artists, and he exhibited at the PAFA and the Art Institute of Chicago. He also served as curator of paintings at the Cincinnati Art Museum from 1911 until his death in Boston in 1917.
Falk’s Who Was Who in American Art has the following comment about Meakin (Volume II, page 2235): “…After studies in Europe, he became a lifelong teacher at the Cincinnati Art Academy, 1886 to 1917. He is regarded as an important Midwest landscape painter, often called the “Father of Western Art”, who began working in a Tonalist manner, then moved toward Impressionism around the turn of the century…..George Bellows considered him “one of the best landscape painters in America”.
Information courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions Inc.