The Life and Work of John Quidor

John Quidor is one of America's foremost literary painters. His reputation rests upon his thirty-two extant paintings which are derived primarily from the legends of Washington Irving. Although many nineteenth century artists painted one or more scenes from Irving's popular legends, Quidor was the only artist to paint these scenes throughout his long career. In contrast to conventional illustrators, Quidor relies upon the literary narrative as a point of departure for a more spirited and often more penetrating interpretation of a scene or character. The dissertation combines a traditional monographic approach and a period study of the artist. The analysis of the artist's work focuses primarily upon three issues. First, what is the precise relationship between Quidor's paintings and their literary sources? Second, to what extent and in what ways did the artist use popular prints in the development of his art? And finally, what was the artist's reputation in the nineteenth century? The dissertation demonstrates that Quidor is a surprisingly sophisticated artist in both his interpretation and depiction of literary texts and his use of pictorial sources. Moreover, Quidor was not an unknown figure in the New York art world. Throughout most of his career, he maintained a local and sometimes regional reputation. The dissertation consists of five chapters as well as appendices of contemporary documents and a catalogue raisonne, including new additions to the artist's oeuvre.