Benjamin Bellows Grant Stone (1829-1906)
Stone entered Benjamin Champney's art classes in Boston in 1851 after several years of work in a Boston ship chandlery. In 1853 he moved to New York City and enrolled as a student with Jasper Cropsey. In 1856 he rented Thomas Cole's studio from Cole's widow and settled in Catskill, NY. All his life he kept in touch with contemporary artists, corresponding with Frederic Church, whom he frequently visited, his old teachers, Champney and Cropsey, as well as Sanford Gifford, Sylvester Hodgdon, and many others. His early promise was curtailed by military service in the Civil War, and, after his return to Catskill, he turned out any work that came to hand -- lithographs for Goupil (a 19th century art dealer), stage sets, book and magazine illustrations -- and was often ill-paid. His painting, Harvest Scene, a view taken in North Conway which he sold to Louis Prang for $50, was the most popular chromolithograph ever put out by that firm and netted Prang about $100,000 over the years it was in their catalog.He was a prolific painter of White Mountain scenes. His White Mountain paintings are dated between 1851 and 1867.
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