John Joseph Enneking (1841-1916)

John Enneking studied with both Barbizon painter Charles-Francois Daubigny and marine painter Eugène Boudin. However, Enneking was also aware of Claude Monet as early as 1873 and was a friend of Edouard Manet. His solo exhibition in Boston in 1878 was the first of many critical and commercial successes that financed additional study in Munich, Paris and Amsterdam. In 1883 Enneking participated in a show with Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf and Theodore Robinson, but perhaps because his more conservative style was already widely accepted in the galleries and academies of Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, he later declined an invitation from Hassam to exhibit with the Ten American Painters. His numerous awards included a gold medal at the Panama-Pacific Exhibition in 1915. Enneking’s New England landscapes, characterized by contemporary art critics as “impressions” of uniquely American light and landscape, meld influences from Dutch masters, Barbizon and French Impressionists into a distinctive personal style.