Career
Elliott returned to central New York, where he worked intensively at portrait painting for 10 years. Among his works were portraits of many faculty at Hamilton College. Needing the stimulation of the city, he returned to New York in 1845, where Trumbull approved of his progress in painting. The following year he was elected to the National Academy of Design, which was a measure of recognition and helped him attract more clients.
Elliott was considered the best portraitist of his day. Although he never studied abroad, his technique is neither provincial nor uncertain. His method is mature, his drawing firm, his color fresh and clean, and his likenesses excellent, though somewhat lacking in sentiment. He was said to have painted over 700 portraits, mostly heads, as he had little idea of the composition of large canvases. He also painted figure pieces, including Don Quijote and Falstaff, and one landscape, The Head of Skaneateles Lake.
Among his sitters were Fenimore Cooper, Fitz-Greene Halleck, Fletcher Harper, A. B. Durand (The Corcoran Gallery, Washington), and Governor Bouck (City Hall, New York). Additional portraits by Elliott hang in the New York City Hall, and the New York State Library at Albany. Four of his portraits are held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Read more about this topic: Charles Loring Elliott
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