Bannister, Edward Mitchell
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Bannister, Edward Mitchell

Sex:  Male

Born:  St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada
c.1826

Died:  Providence, Rhode Island, United States
9 January 1901

Activity/Profession:  Painter

3 articles on Bannister, Edward Mitchell

• Bannister, Edward Mitchell

  Source: Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition

  Word Count: 926      Includes:  Bibliography

  1826–1901
  One of the first African Americans to receive national recognition as a painter, and the only major black artist of the nineteenth century who did not travel to Europe to study art. Edward Mitchell Bannister was the first of two sons born to Edward and Hannah Alexander Bannister. His father was from Barbados; his mother, who was probably of Scottish descent, was a native of St. Andrews, New Brunswick, and fostered her older son's love of drawing. His father died when Bannister was six; his mother died in 1844. The two boys were sent to live with a wealthy white lawyer, Harris Hatch, and his family. They worked on the Hatches' farm but had access to the Hatches' library, which was filled with books and with paintings that Bannister copied incessantly. ...
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• Bannister, Edward Mitchell

  Source: African American National Biography

  Word Count: 1845      Includes:  Further Reading

  (c. 1826–9 Jan. 1901), painter, was born in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada, the son of Hannah Alexander, a native of New Brunswick, and Edward Bannister, from Barbados. While his birth date has generally been given as 1828, recent research has suggested that he was born several years earlier. After the death of his father in 1832, Edward was raised by his mother, whom he later credited with encouraging his artistic aspirations: “The love of art in some form came to me from my mother. … She it was who encouraged and fostered my childhood propensities for drawing and coloring” (Holland, Edward Mitchell Bannister, 17). His mother died in 1844, and Edward and his younger brother, William, were sent to work for a wealthy local family, where he was exposed ...
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• Bannister, Edward Mitchell

  Source: Grove Art Online

  Word Count: 500      Includes:  Bibliography

  (b. St Andrews, NB, 1833; d. Providence, RI, 9 Jan 1901).

  American painter. He grew up in St Andrews, a small seaport in New Brunswick, Canada. His interest in art was encouraged by his mother, and he made his earliest studies, in drawing and watercolour, at the age of ten. After working as a cook on vessels on the Eastern seaboard, he moved in 1848 with his brother to Boston, where he set up as a barber serving the black community. During the 1850s and 1860s he learnt the technique of solar photography, a process of enlarging photographic images that were developed outdoors in daylight, which he continued to practise while working in Boston and New York. Documented paintings from this time include religious scenes, seascapes and genre subjects, for example the noted Newspaper Boy

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