(1826–1888)
Andrew John Henry Way grew up in Washington, D.C., and settled in Baltimore, where he became the city’s most popular painter. Way first studied with John P. Frankenstein in Cincinnati and then with Alfred Jacob Miller, Baltimore’s major painter of western and genre scenes. In 1850 he left to study in Paris and Florence. He returned to Baltimore in 1854 and made his living painting portraits until 1859, when Emanuel Leutze saw one of his still lifes and encouraged him to switch genres. Way took his advice, becoming a leading American still-life painter from the 1860s until his death in 1888.
Way specialized in painting the oysters that abounded in the Chesapeake Bay, which were so successful that they made critics’ mouths water.[1] He also excelled at painting grapes; contemporary writers rhapsodized that Way attains fine results by conscientious portraiture of his models. He selects fine bunches of his favorite fruit, hangs them in the light that he desires, and against such background as best brings out their beauties, and then paints, with the most loving care, every detail.[2]
Way exhibited at the Washington Art Association in 1858, at the National Academy of Design from 1861 to 1885, at the Brooklyn Art Association from 1877 to 1886, at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1877 to 1887, and at the Royal Academy, London. When he exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial, he won two medals. Way’s work hangs in public collections such as the Peabody Institute and Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; Maryland Historical Society; and the Shelburne Museum, Vermont.
[1] Susan Danly and Bruce Weber, For Beauty and for Truth: The William and Abigail Gerdts Collection of American Still Life (Amherst, Mass.: Mead Art Museum, Amherst College; New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, 1998), 90.
[2] Clara Erskine Clement and Laurence Hutton, Artists of the Nineteenth Century and their Work (1884; reprint, St. Louis: North Point, 1969), 339, quoted in William H. Gerdts and Russell Burke, American Still-Life Painting (New York: Praeger, 1971), 72.
