Junius Brutus Stearns Explained

Junius Brutus Stearns (born Lucius Sawyer Stearns, June 2, 1810September 17, 1885) was an American painter best known for his five-part Washington Series (1847–1856).[1]

He was a member of the National Academy of Design for several decades and a member of its council.

He was born Lucius Sawyer Stearns[1] in Arlington, Vermont. He named two sons after him, one Lucius Stearns, and the other Junius Brutus Stearns, Jr. Stearns, Jr., served in the Civil War in the 44th Regiment.[2] JB Stearns served in the Civil War as well, in New York's 12th Regiment.[3] [4] He also had two other sons, Raphael and Michaelangelo, and a daughter, Edith Sylvia.[5]

His painting The Millennium was submitted as credentials for his admission as a member of the National Academy of Design.[6]

Death

He died September 17, 1885, in Brooklyn, New York, in a horse-and-carriage accident after returning from a night at the theatre.[7] He was 75 years old and was interred at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn.[8]

Paintings

Stearns is most famous for his series on George Washington.[9] Of these his painting, Washington as a Statesman,[1] depicts President Washington addressing the Constitutional Convention; it is the subject of a US Postage Stamp in 1937.[10]

Stearns also painted a second series of Washington in which he depicted free blacks.[11] Not as much is known about this series or the intentions of the artist in so portraying blacks on the eve of the Civil War, although there was supposition by Mack, et al.[12]

Stearns' painting, Hannah Duston Killing the Indians (1847)[13] depicts the killing by Hannah Duston of Indians who had captured her and murdered her newborn daughter in 1697.[14] In the painting Stearns, for reasons that remain unclear, depicts Samuel Lennardson (Duston's fellow captive) as a woman. The six Indian children Duston killed are omitted. A second painting, showing Hannah's husband fleeing with her children, is now lost.[15]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Washington as Statesman at the Constitutional Convention by Junius Brutus Stearns - Teaching American History. teachingamericanhistory.org. 26 April 2015.
  2. https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F05E1DC1F3FEE34BC4B51DFB1668389679FDE The Battles Before Richmond - Lists of Wounded in the Different Encounters. Names of the Prisoners in Richmond. Second Maine Regiment. Twenty-Second Massachusetts Regiment. TW...
  3. Web site: Stearns Genealogy and Memoirs. google.com. 26 April 2015. Wagenen. Avis Stearns Van. 1901.
  4. Book: History and honorary roll of the Twelfth Regiment, Infantry, N.G.S.N.Y. 9781432808761. 26 April 2015.
  5. Web site: RootsWeb: PETIT-L Edith (Stearns) Foy-Pettit and stepson Wade C. Pettit. rootsweb.com. 26 April 2015.
    Web site: Catalogue of the Loan Exhibition of Historical Portraits and Relics .... google.com. 1889. 26 April 2015.
  6. Gail E. Husch (2000). Something Coming: Apocalyptic Expectation and Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Painting.
  7. https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F07E5DE1E39E533A2575AC1A96F9C94649FD7CF New York Times (09.19.1885)
  8. Web site: Notable Burials. 2022-02-07. Cypress Hills Cemetery. en-US.
  9. Thistlewaite, Mark Edward (1979). The Image of George ashington: Studies in Mid-Nineteenth-Century American History Painting. New York: Garland.
  10. http://www.junior-philatelists.com/USStampsHistory37.htm SESQUICENTENNIAL OF CONSTITUTION COMMEMORATIVE POSTAGE STAMP ISSUE OF 1937
  11. http://www.butlerart.com/pc_book/pages/junius.htm JUNIUS BRUTUS STEARNS 1810
  12. Book: Landscape of Slavery: The Plantation in American Art: Angela D. Mack, Stephen G. Hoffius, Todd D. Smith: 9781570037207: Amazon.com: Books. 978-1570037207. Mack. Angela D.. Hoffius. Stephen G.. 2008.
  13. http://www.karenfurst.com/blog/indian-captivity-narratives/painting-by-junius-brutus-stearns-hannah-dustin-killing-the-indians-1847/ Painting by Junius Brutus Stearns, "Hannah Dustin Killing the Indians," 1847
  14. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/239422/pdf Barbara Cutter, "The Female Indian Killer Memorialized: Hannah Duston and the Nineteenth–Century Feminization of American Violence," Journal of Women's History, vol. 20, no. 2, 2008; pp 10–33
  15. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/679697 Lauren Lessing, "Theatrical Mayhem in Junius Brutus Stearns's Hannah Duston Killing the Indians," American Art, Volume 28, Issue 3, pp. 76-103

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