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DESCRIPTION:
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A leading figure among Boston's impressionist painters, Tarbell was also a highly popular and influential teacher. Along with his friend and colleague Frank Benson, Tarbell taught at the school of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts for over twenty years, where he was so prominent that his students came to be known as Tarbellites. He was a founding member of the Ten American Painters, who broke ground by joining together to exhibit their works in aesthetically coherent surroundings. In addition, he served as the first president of the Guild of Boston Artists, a group founded to exhibit and sell works by living American artists.
Tarbell is particularly associated with figural impressionism, and his works include human subjects (often lovely young women) outdoors in bright sunlight, as well as indoor scenes of women engaged in quiet activities that recall the works of Jan Vermeer. The artist's soundly constructed compositions reflect his teaching methods (where he insisted upon a thorough understanding and careful rendering of the human form) as well as the lifestyle and accoutrements that were part of his genteel upbringing. The Boston-born artist spent summers in New Castle, New Hampshire, and his home there provided the setting for many of his works. Tarbell was also a highly sought-after portrait painter, receiving commissions to paint such distinguished subjects as Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover.
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