George F. Fuller holds a distinct place in the history of American art, praised as “one of the most wholly original and intellectual painters this country has produced.” (1) Born in Deerfield, Massachusetts Fuller worked as a portrait painter in Albany, Boston, and New York in the 1840s and 1850s. After a three month sojourn to Europe in 1860, he moved to Deerfield to care for the family farm and began the second characteristic phase of his career: he painted compositions taken from the local landscape and his European sketches, often including figures as the focal point. He relocated to Boston in 1876, where his highly individualistic landscape, figure, and subject paintings were particularly well-received and helped him to gain local fame and patronage. Fuller exhibited at Doll and Richard’s, the Boston Art Club, the Society of American Artists, and the National Academy of Design.

1. William Henry Goodyear, A History of Art (New York: A. S. Barnes & Company, 1896), 368