Born in Bridgeport, Ohio, Joseph Henry Sharp was encouraged by his mother to express himself through art. His interest in his chosen subject was largely stimulated by reading American author James Fenimore Cooper’s (1789-1851) Leatherstocking Tales, a series of novels featuring imagined encounters between settlers and Native Americans. A childhood accident left Sharp deaf for life at the age of twelve, and he left school to work in a nail factory and copper shop to help support his large family. However, two years later, with his mother’s support, Sharp was allowed to enroll in Cincinnati’s McMicken School of Design.
In the 1880s, based in Cincinnati, Sharp made three long trips to Europe for further study in Antwerp, Belgium; Munich, Germany; and Paris. He also journeyed west, on the advice of his friend and mentor, western painter Henry Farny (1847–1916). Visiting New Mexico, California, and the Pacific Northwest in 1883, he studied and sketched individual members of the various tribes he encountered. Sharp taught at the Cincinnati Art Academy while working during summers in Taos, New Mexico. Other artists soon joined Sharp in Taos, notably painters Ernest L. Blumenschein (1874–1960) and Bert Phillips (1868–1956), whom he met in Paris in the mid-1890s. In 1899, Sharp visited the Crow reservation in Montana and began to paint and photograph individuals who had participated in the Battle of Little Big Horn between Plains Indians and American military forces in 1876.
After the turn of the century, Sharp’s work attracted patrons such as Phoebe Hearst (mother of publisher William Randolph Hearst); Joseph G. Butler of Youngstown, Ohio; and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Beginning in the late 1890s, Sharp divided his time between Taos, Montana, and California. After his first wife’s death, in 1913, he became a permanent resident of Taos. Two years later, he helped found the Taos Society of Artists, a group of academically trained painters who celebrated southwestern life and landscape in their naturalistic, highly popular works. Sharp, the oldest member, was considered the spiritual father of the group. He was also financially one of its most successful. Even during the Great Depression and late in his life, when his traditional approach to painting was outmoded, his works were consistently popular.
Born in Bridgeport, Ohio, Joseph Henry Sharp was encouraged by his mother to express himself through art. His interest in his chosen subject was largely stimulated by reading American author James Fenimore Cooper’s (1789-1851) Leatherstocking Tales, a series of novels featuring imagined encounters between settlers and Native Americans. A childhood accident left Sharp deaf for life at the age of twelve, and he left school to work in a nail factory and copper shop to help support his large family. However, two years later, with his mother’s support, Sharp was allowed to enroll in Cincinnati’s McMicken School of Design.
In the 1880s, based in Cincinnati, Sharp made three long trips to Europe for further study in Antwerp, Belgium; Munich, Germany; and Paris. He also journeyed west, on the advice of his friend and mentor, western painter Henry Farny (1847–1916). Visiting New Mexico, California, and the Pacific Northwest in 1883, he studied and sketched individual members of the various tribes he encountered. Sharp taught at the Cincinnati Art Academy while working during summers in Taos, New Mexico. Other artists soon joined Sharp in Taos, notably painters Ernest L. Blumenschein (1874–1960) and Bert Phillips (1868–1956), whom he met in Paris in the mid-1890s. In 1899, Sharp visited the Crow reservation in Montana and began to paint and photograph individuals who had participated in the Battle of Little Big Horn between Plains Indians and American military forces in 1876.
After the turn of the century, Sharp’s work attracted patrons such as Phoebe Hearst (mother of publisher William Randolph Hearst); Joseph G. Butler of Youngstown, Ohio; and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Beginning in the late 1890s, Sharp divided his time between Taos, Montana, and California. After his first wife’s death, in 1913, he became a permanent resident of Taos. Two years later, he helped found the Taos Society of Artists, a group of academically trained painters who celebrated southwestern life and landscape in their naturalistic, highly popular works. Sharp, the oldest member, was considered the spiritual father of the group. He was also financially one of its most successful. Even during the Great Depression and late in his life, when his traditional approach to painting was outmoded, his works were consistently popular.