Thomas W Dewing (1851–1938)

Dewing studied at the Lowell Institute in the native Boston and traveled to Paris, where he enrolled at the Académie Julian in 1876. Returning to Boston, he taught at the newly opened Museum School at the Museum of Fine Arts before moving, like so many writers and artists of his generation, to New York City. 

For more than fifteen years, Thomas and his wife Maria Oakey, led the artist’s colony at Cornish, New Hampshire, pursuing a “higher life” through art, music, and literature.

Dewing continued to paint into the early years of the twentieth century with the support of the railroad-car manufacturer Charles Lang Freer,  and the insurance magnate John Gellatly, both of whom gave their extensive collections to the Smithsonian Institution.