View source for James McDougal Hart

{{Short description|British-American painter}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = James McDougal Hart
| image = James McDougal Hart.jpg
| imagesize = 
| caption = James M. Hart (ca. 1865-1867). Photo by [[George G. Rockwood|Rockwood]].
| birth_name = 
| birth_date = {{Birth date |1828|5|10|}}
| birth_place = [[Kilmarnock, Ayrshire]],Scotland
| death_date = {{death date and age |1901|10|24|1828|5|10|}}
| death_place = [[Brooklyn, New York]]
| nationality = [[United States|American]]
| field = [[Landscape art]], [[Painting]]
| training = [[Hudson River School]]
| movement = 
| works = 
| patrons = 
| influenced by = 
| influenced = 
| awards = 
}}

[[File:James McDougal Hart, ca. 1890.jpg|thumb|260px|James McDougal Hart, ca. 1890]]
'''James McDougal Hart''' (May 10, 1828 &ndash; October 24, 1901), was a [[Scotland|Scottish]]-born [[United States|American]] [[landscape art|landscape]] and cattle [[Painting|painter]] of the [[Hudson River School]].

==Family and education==
Hart was born in [[Kilmarnock]], [[Scotland]], and was taken to America with his family in early youth. His older brother, [[William Hart (painter)|William Hart]], was also a Hudson River School artist, as were his younger sister [[Julie Hart Beers]] and his two daughters, both figure painters, [[Letitia Bonnet Hart]] (1867 - Sept. 1953) and [[Mary Theresa Hart]] (1872–1942). Another niece, [[Annie L. Y. Orff]], became an editor and publisher.<ref name="WillardLivermore-1893">{{cite book |last1=Willard |first1=Frances Elizabeth |author1-link=Frances Willard |last2=Livermore |first2=Mary Ashton Rice |author2-link=Mary Livermore |title=A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life |year=1893 |publisher=[[Charles Wells Moulton]] |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Woman_of_the_Century/Annie_L._Y._Orff |pages=548–49  |chapter=ORFF, Mrs. Annie L. Y. }} {{Source-attribution}}</ref>

In [[Albany, New York]] he trained with a sign and carriage maker— possibly the same employer that had taken on his brother in his early career. James later returned to [[Europe]] for serious artistic training, studying in [[Munich]] and as a pupil of [[Friedrich Wilhelm Schirmer]] at the [[Kunstakademie Düsseldorf]]. He is associated with the [[Düsseldorf school of painting]].

==Career==
Hart returned to America in 1853. He exhibited his first work at the [[National Academy of Design]] in 1848 and  became an associate in 1857 and a full member in 1859. He was particularly devoted to the National Academy, exhibiting there over a period of more than forty years and serving as vice president late in his life from 1895 to 1899. Like his brother William, James also exhibited at the Brooklyn Art Association (he lived for a time in Brooklyn) and at major exhibitions around the country.

Along with most of the major [[landscape art|landscape]] artists of the time, Hart based his operations in New York City and adopted the style of the [[Hudson River School]]. While he and his brother William often painted similar [[landscape art|landscape]] subjects, James may have been more inclined to paint exceptionally large works. An example is ''The Old Homestead'' (1862), 42 x 68&nbsp;inches, in the collection of the [[High Museum of Art]] in Atlanta, Georgia. James may have been exposed to large paintings while studying in Düsseldorf, a center of realist art pedagogy that also shaped the practices of [[Albert Bierstadt]] and [[Worthington Whittredge]].

Like his brother William, James excelled at painting cattle. Kevin J. Avery writes, "the bovine subjects that once distinguished [his works] now seem the embodiment of Hart's artistic complacency." (p.&nbsp;250 in ''American Drawings and Watercolors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Volume I: A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born Before 1835'') In contrast with the complacency of some of his cattle scenes, his major [[landscape art|landscape]] paintings are considered important works of the Hudson River School. A particularly fine example is ''Summer in the Catskills'', now in the [[Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum]] in Madrid, Spain.

Among Hart's students was the Hudson River School painter [[Evelina Mount]].<ref name=Black>Black, M. ''American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts: Works by Artists Born Before 1816'', vol. I. Detroit, Michigan, 1991, p. 140.</ref><ref name=Naylor>Naylor, Natalie A. ''Women in Long Island's Past: A History of Eminent Ladies and Everyday Lives''. Charleston, S.C.: The History Press, 2012.</ref>

Hart is interred at [[Green-Wood Cemetery]] in [[Brooklyn]], [[New York (state)|New York]].

==Gallery==
<gallery widths="140px" heights="140px" perrow="5">
File:A stream in the adirondacks hart.jpg|''A Stream in the Adirondacks'' (1859), oil on canvas, 21.125 x 35.25 inch.; collection of [[Walters Art Museum]]
File:Hart Gleneida Lake Putnam County NY 1863.jpg|''Gleneida Lake, [[Putnam County, New York]]'' (1863) oil on canvas, 17.5 inch. x 30.25 inch.
File:JM Hart Cows Watering 1865.jpg|''Cows Watering'' (1865) oil on canvas, 26.75 inch. x 56.75 inch.
File:JM Hart Summer in the Catskills.jpg|''Summer in the Catskills'' (1865) oil on canvas, collection of [[Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum]]
File:Artwork images 619 243873 jamesmcJames McDougal Hart - Harriman New York Overlooking the Hudson.jpg|''Harriman New York Overlooking the Hudson''
File:JM Hart Landscape with Stone Bridge.jpg| ''Landscape with Stone Bridge'', Pencil on paper, 5.5 inch. x 7.8125 inch., collection of [[Walters Art Museum]]
File:James McDougal Hart - 'The Old Homestead', 1862, High Museum.JPG|James McDougal Hart - The Old Homestead, oil on canvas, 1862, High Museum of Art
</gallery>

==See also==
*[[List of Hudson River School artists]]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20141224221005/http://www.hartproject.org/#!references-hart-history/ccg8 Full biography of William and James M. Hart, Dr. Mark W. Sullivan and Seth I Rosen, The Hart Project]
* Sullivan, Mark W. ''James M. and William Hart, American Landscape Painters.'' Philadelphia:  John Warren, 1983.
* Sabine Morgen: Die Ausstrahlung der Düsseldorfer Schule nach Amerika im 19. Jahrhundert. Düsseldorfer Bilder in Amerika und amerikanische Maler in Düsseldorf mit Künstlerlexikon auf CD-ROM, Edition Ruprecht, Göttingen 2008, {{ISBN|978-3-7675-3059-1}} (= Göttinger Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte, Band 2) [Hart's painting and biography discussed]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://www.bedfordfineartgallery.com/james_mcdougal_hart_landscape.html Artwork by James McDougal Hart]

{{Hudson River School}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hart, James}}
[[Category:1828 births]]
[[Category:1901 deaths]]
[[Category:Burials at Green-Wood Cemetery]]
[[Category:People from Kilmarnock]]
[[Category:19th-century American painters]]
[[Category:American male painters]]
[[Category:Hudson River School painters]]
[[Category:Scottish emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:Animal artists]]
[[Category:American landscape painters]]
[[Category:19th-century American male artists]]
[[Category:Düsseldorf school of painting]]