Gallery

John W. Casilear was apprenticed as an engraver under Peter Maverick in 1826 and studied painting under Asher B. Durand in 1831. In 1840 to 1843 Casilear went abroad to study with Asher B. Durand and John F. Kensett. By 1854 he had gained popularity as a painter and no longer pursued engraving. The Crayon of November 1855 (p. 330) noted that:

Mr. Casilear has a number of fine mountain studies, one of which, a study of Mount Washington, taken from a point nearer than any we have before seen, gives an excellent topographical view of it as well as a very impressive one, grand, lonely and lofty.

He became an associate of the National Academy of Design in 1835 and a member in 1851. He exhibited there from 1833 to 1893. He maintained a studio at West 10th Street, New York City, from 1859 to 1893. He was a member of the Century Association from 1851 to 1893.

He also exhibited at the Appolo Association, the American Art-Union, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Brooklyn Art Association, the Boston Art Club, the Washington Art Association, and the Maryland Historical Society. He was a friend of such important White Mountain painters as Benjamin Champney and Thomas Cole.

On August 17, 1893, Casilear died suddenly while in his room at Congress Hall in Saratoga Springs, NY. The coroner’s jury rendered a verdict that uremia was the cause of death. Four days later, his funeral was held at the Church of Transformation on East 29th Street in New York City. Reverend Dr. George H. Houghton, rector of the church, conducted the services. Burial took place in the family plot in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY.

Obituary From The Evening World
New York, NY / Friday, August 18, 1893 / Page 5 / Death of Artist Casilear

John W. Casilear, of Brooklyn, the venerable and well-known artist, dropped dead in Saratoga last evening while with his brother, Paul S. Casilear, with whom he had just come from Lake George.

John W. Casilear was eighty-two years old, had been a member of the Academy of Design for forty-two years, and had lived and labored in an atelier in the Studio Building at Sixth Avenue and Tenth Street for more than twenty-three years.

John W. Casilear, Brooklyn, is the only son of the artist.

Images of John William Casilear

Signatures

Reference
New Hampshire Scenery