Edwin Lord Weeks

Edwin Lord Weeks (1849 – November 1903) was an American painter, noted for his Orientalist works.

Life

Weeks was born in Boston, in 1849. His parents were spice and tea merchants from Newton, and as such they were able to finance their son's youthful interest in painting and travelling. As a young man Weeks visited the Florida Keys to draw, and also travelled to Surinam in South America. His earliest known paintings date from 1867 when he was eighteen years old, although it is not until his Landscape with Blue Heron, dated 1871 and painted in the Everglades, that Weeks started to exhibit a dexterity of technique and eye for composition—presumably having taken professional tuition.

In 1872, Weeks relocated to Paris, becoming a pupil of Léon Bonnat and Jean-Léon Gérôme.

After his studies in Paris, Weeks emerged as one of America's major painters of Orientalist subjects. Throughout his adult life he was an inveterate traveler and journeyed to South America (1869), Egypt and Persia (1870), Morocco (frequently between 1872 and 1878), and India (1882–83). During his trip to India, he became the first known American artist to visit the country, where he produced sketches and paintings of daily life and royalty in cities including Benares, Mathura, Agra, Amritsar, and Lahore. He returned to India in 1887 and traveled until 1893, focusing extensively on the princely states of Rajputana and Malwa—such as Bikaner, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Udaipur, and Jaipur—which he collectively referred to as the "India of the Rajahs".

In 1895, Weeks wrote and illustrated a book of travels, From the Black Sea through Persia and India, and in 1897 he published Episodes of Mountaineering (which was preceded by the 1894 article Some Episodes of Mountaineering, by a Casual Amateur).

Weeks died in Paris in November 1903. He was a member of the , France, an officer of the Order of Saint Michael (Bavaria), and a member of the Munich Secession.

Gallery