Early Life and Art Training
Dickinson was born and raised in Seneca Falls, New York, in the Finger Lakes area; his family moved to Buffalo in 1897. The death of his mother from tuberculosis in 1903, the suicide in 1913 of his older brother, Burgess, his father's remarriage in 1914 to a much younger woman, and the death of a close friend in combat have all been cited as influences on the themes of his later work. As a boy Dickinson had assumed he would become a minister, like his father, but his brother's suggestion of a career in the navy proved more to his liking. Unfortunately, he failed the entrance exam of the U.S. Naval Academy twice. In 1911 he enrolled at the Art Students League, where he studied under William Merritt Chase. In the summers of 1912 and 1913 he stayed in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he studied with Charles W. Hawthorne, and continued there year round from 1913 to the summer of 1916, working as Hawthorne's assistant in 1914. From late summer 1916 through year's end Dickinson investigated the possibilities of printmaking in Provincetown with fellow painter Ross Moffett, and made further attempts in the '20s and '30s, but felt his time was better spent painting.
Read more about this topic: Edwin Dickinson
Famous quotes containing the words early, life, art and/or training:
“Well, it’s early yet!”
—Robert Pirosh, U.S. screenwriter, George Seaton, George Oppenheimer, and Sam Wood. Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush (Groucho Marx)
“Every writer hopes or boldly assumes that his life is in some sense exemplary, that the particular will turn out to be universal.”
—Martin Amis (b. 1949)
“In spite of the roaring of the young lions at the Union, and the screaming of the rabbits in the home of the vivisector, in spite of Keble College, and the tramways, and the sporting prints, Oxford still remains the most beautiful thing in England, and nowhere else are life and art so exquisitely blended, so perfectly made one.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“There is all the difference in the world between departure from recognised rules by one who has learned to obey them, and neglect of them through want of training or want of skill or want of understanding. Before you can be eccentric you must know where the circle is.”
—Ellen Terry (1847–1928)