Charles Courtney Curran

Charles Courtney Curran (13 February 1861 – 9 November 1942) was an American impressionist painter. He is best known for his canvases depicting women in various settings, as well as for his leadership role at the Cragsmoor Art Colony.

Biography

Lady with a Bouquet. The artist's wife with flowers from the Viburnum 'Snowball' bush

Curran was born in February, 1861, in Hartford, Kentucky, where his father taught at the school. A few months later, after the beginning of the Civil War, the family left there and returned to Ohio, eventually settling in Sandusky on the shores of Lake Erie where the elder Curran served as superintendent of schools.

Charles Curran showed an early interest and aptitude for art, and in 1881 went to Cincinnati to study at the McMicken School (later the Fine Arts Academy of Cincinnati). He stayed there only a year before going to New York to study at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League where he studied under Walter Satterlee.