William Lamb Picknell

About William Lamb Picknell

William Lamb Picknell was born in 1853 in Vermont and, as a young man, went to Rome to study with George Inness. After two years, Picknell enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts and subsequently moved to Pont-Aven, the seacoast village in Brittany where an international group of artists had established an art colony.

William Lamb Picknell was born in 1853 in Vermont and, as a young man, went to Rome to study with George Inness. After two years, Picknell enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts and subsequently moved to Pont-Aven, the seacoast village in Brittany where an international group of artists had established an art colony. Picknell painted in a plein-air style, capturing the brilliant light of the seacoast town. It was this "glaring" light that characterized his technique and established him in the vanguard of outdoor landscape painting. His vision and bravura brushwork was influenced by the French realist painter Gustave Courbet. In 1876, Picknell began to exhibit in the Paris Salon. His masterpiece, The Road to Concarneau, 1880 (oil on canvas, 42 3/8 x 79 3/4 inches, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), was awarded an honorable mention in the Salon of 1880, and this important canvas set the benchmark for his subsequent work. He returned to America in the early 1880s and settled in Annisquam on the Massachusetts coast, the domain of several of the Boston School painters. Annisquam and nearby Gloucester became the gathering place for scores of progressive painters. Picknell was elected to the Society of American Artists in 1880; the Society of British Artists, London, in 1884; and, as an associate member, to the National Academy of Design in 1891.

Art Fair Career Timeline

Frequently Asked Questions