Richard Norris Brooke

He has been described as "first among several artists who brought a national distinction to the Washington art community, and who were instrumental in making it more professional through the establishment of schools, clubs, and exhibitions.

[1] The elder Brooke had made arrangements for his son to travel to Rome to study art under William Randolph Barbee, but the outbreak of war prevented the trip from taking place.

[1] While living in Philadelphia he taught at a number of schools,[2] including the Mount Vernon Institute; the Broad Street Military Academy, and Villa Nova College.

At the death of William D. Washington in 1871, Brooke was appointed the chair of the Department of Fine Arts at the Virginia Military Institute, but he left the position the following year.

[1] In 1873 he became United States Consul at La Rochelle, in which role he remained until 1877;[3] during his time in France he studied with Léon Bonnat, and later he would work with Carolus-Duran and Benjamin Constant.

[1] In Washington he moved into Vernon Row, a well-regarded studio building east of the White House, where he painted and displayed his art to the public.

[4] Later, with Max Weyl, he established a "Barbizon Studio" diagonally across from the former Corcoran Gallery on 17th St. and Pennsylvania Ave., but the commercial nature of the neighborhood meant that a true artistic community could not take hold in the area.

[5] In tandem with his work as a painter, in 1882 Brooke embarked on a second career as a purchaser of art for private collectors; Thomas E. Waggaman was his first client in this role.

[4] He explained his motives in a letter offering the painting for sale to the Corcoran Gallery of Art: It must have struck many of you that the fine range of subject afforded by Negro domestic life has been strangely abandoned to works of flimsy treatment and vulgar exaggeration.

That peculiar humor which is characteristic of the race, and varies with the individual, cannot be thus crudely conveyed.In entering this field, by the advice of many of my Artist friends, and with the equipment of a foreign training, I have had a deliberate purpose in view.