Frank Duveneck (1848-1919)

Born Frank Decker into a working-class German-Catholic family in Covington, Frank Duveneck is perhaps the best known of the 19th century Cincinnati artists. A portrait and genre painter and teacher, he was apprenticed to church decorators as a teen and, showing promise, was sent at age 21 to study at the Royal Academy in Munich.

Within a short time he gave up his plans for pursuing church work and established himself as a leader of his class, winning prizes and mastering the bravura brush technique practiced by the Munich school.

He also began to attract his own students including Otto Bacher, Joseph DeCamp, John Twatchman and Theodore Wendel.

His influence through this first group of students to the next generation had a powerful impact on the arts of the time.

A show in Boston of five of his paintings received critical praise and all but one painting sold. This gave Duveneck the confidence he needed to return to Munich where he became the leader of American painters there. Many of his students, known as the Duveneck Boys, followed him to Munich. One student, Elizabeth Boott, became his wife.

In Venice, Duveneck met James McNeill Whistler, which led to his experimentation with etching. During this time he produced both paintings and etchings in praise of Venetian light, life and architecture, a distinctive departure from his earlier work.

After the death of his wife in 1888 after only two years of marriage, he returned to Cincinnati in 1890 and devoted the last 28 years of his life to teaching.

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