Shattuck, Aaron Draper (1832-1928) Artist. The seventh of nine children, Aaron Shattuck was born into a family with a long pre-Revolutionary War history in America. His public school education took place in Lowell, New Hampshire, and soon afterwards he began to paint portraits under the tutelage of Bostonian Alexander Ransom. Shattuck accompanied Ransom to New York City and continued his art education at the National Academy of Design, establishing himself as a portrait painter by 1855. His closest friends at the time were Pfaff’s frequenters Thomas Bailey Aldrich and Fitz-James O’Brien. Francis Wolle suggests that Shattuck spent the most time at Pfaff’s when the Saturday Press was being published because he was Clapp’s assistant (1, 128-129). Scholar Mark Lause also places him in the Pfaff's crowd including him in a list of "pioneering landscape painters of the Hudson River School" fond of "natural or exotic themes" that characterized many of the artists associated with the group (Lause 62).
In 1860 Shattuck married Marian Colman, with whom he had six children. His work was closely associated with his wife’s maternal uncle, Samuel Colman, the landscape painter. Shattuck’s own work depicted pastoral scenes with livestock, concentrating on the foreground objects. Locations featured in his work include the White Mountains of New Hampshire and Lake Champlain. In 1861 his artistic accomplishments were validated with his election to the National Academy. His paintings include Sunday Morning in New England, Hillside, Lake Champlain, The New England Farm, The Old Homestead, Granby Pastures, and Sheep near the Sea.
References & Biographical Resources
Clement, Clara E. and Laurence Hutton. Artists of the Nineteenth Century and their Works. 1879.
According to Coburn, Shattuck's landscape painting is discussed in this text.
Coburn, Frederick W. "Aaron Draper Shattuck." Dictionary of American Biography. Base Set. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928-1936. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale, 2006. http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC.
French, H. W. Art and Artists in Connecticut. 1879.
According to Coburn, Shattuck is mentioned in this text.
Lause, Mark A. The Antebellum Crisis and America's First Bohemians. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2009.
Aaron Draper Shattuck was one of the pioneering landscape painters of the Hudson River School (62).
[pages:62]
Shattuck, Lemuel. Memorials of the Descendants of William Shattuck. 1855.
According to Coburn, Shattuck is discussed in this family text.
Tuckerman, H. T. Book of the Artists. 1867.
According to Coburn, Shattuck's painting is discussed in this text.
Wilson, James Grant and John Fiske, eds. Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume V, Pickering-Sumter. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1888.
Mentions that Robert M. Pratt painted his portrait in 1859.
[pages:103, 484]
Wolle, Francis. Fitz-James O'Brien: A Literary Bohemian of the Eighteen-Fifties. Boulder, Col.; University of Colorado, 1944.
Part of this book is based on an interview with Shattuck in his home in Granby, Ct.
Spent the most time at Pfaff's during the publication of The Saturday Press because he was Clapp's assistant.
[pages:1, 128, 129]