Biographical Materials
George Hitchcock was an American painter who spent much of his career in Europe, particularly the Netherlands. Born in 1850 in Providence, Rhode Island, he left for Europe at a young age and in 1890 set up his own Art Summer School in the little-known Dutch village of Egmond-Binnen. He wintered in Paris, and spent the summers in Egmond. He continued doing this until 1905, when he married the English painter Cecil Jay and settled in Paris year round. He died in a houseboat in the harbor of Marken in the Netherlands in 1913.
His friends included Gari Melchers, J. J. Shannon, John Singer Sargent, Fokko Tadama and Thamina Groeneveld. George Hitchcock was a gifted painter. At the time he arrived in the Netherlands artists had yet to record its colorful bulb fields on canvas, which he set out to do. The light of the Lowlands and its effect on his subject matter captivated him. Moreover, Hitchcock was drawn to the Netherlands because of the country and its people, and portrayed its landscape as well as the Dutch in traditional costume. In his day he was a highly regarded artist, enjoying the patronage of the likes of Emperor Frans Joseph and Empress Elisabeth ("Sisi") of Austria. — Peter J. H. van den Berg
Related Material
Works
References
van den Berg, Peter J. H., De uitdaging van het licht [The Challenge of the Light]. Egmond-Binnen: Bahlmond Publishers, 2009. ISBN: 978-90-78837-12-1
Bahlmond Publishers
Visweg 21 B
1935Eb Egmond-Binnen
Noord-Holland
The Netherlands
Websites: Bahlmond.Publishers@quicknet.nl and info@bahlmond-publishers.com
Last modified 16 July 2009