David Gilmour Blythe
David Gilmour Blythe (May 9, 1815 – May 15, 1865) was a self-taught American artist best known for paintings which satirically portrayed political and social situations.
Other than his stint with Woodwell, Blythe had no known artistic education or training and his early East Liverpool portraits were ungraceful and stiff.
In the late 1840s Blythe moved from East Liverpool to Uniontown, Pennsylvania, probably due to his courtship of Julia Ann Keffer.
Julia and David were married in Pittsburgh's Roman Catholic cathedral on September 30, 1848 and set up residence in Uniontown.
In addition to painting, Blythe was commissioned to carve a large poplar (8'2") statue of Lafayette for the cupola of the Uniontown, Pennsylvania courthouse.
Blythe also invested a great deal of time and energy in painting a panorama — an early forerunner to motion pictures.
The panorama contained twenty or so scenes picturing eastern locales of aesthetic or historical importance, including Monticello, Fort Necessity, Harper's Ferry, General Braddock's grave, and others.
Though Blythe traveled to exhibit his panorama in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, East Liverpool and a few other locales, it failed to attract interest sufficient to continue touring.
The sophisticated group of portraits he produced in the East Liverpool area in these years were noticeably more polished than his early period work.
Blythe opposed the expansion of both slavery and immigration, and made vigorous visual points regarding both issues in a number of singularly accomplished genre paintings.
Although he did not personally witness combat, Blythe gained enough of a sense of the cruelties of war that he was emboldened to paint several powerful pieces.
They are shown to be canny participants in the city's hustle-and-bustle: playing marbles for money, setting off firecrackers, picking pockets, smoking cigars, stealing eggs and indulging in other forms of hanky-panky.
Blythe lived an archetypal "starving artist" existence in Pittsburgh, showing little interest in social relationships, his attire or personal hygiene, or the sales of his artwork.
