Harry Aiken Vincent

Harry Aiken Vincent (1861 –1931) was a largely self-taught American artist known for his plein air landscape paintings.

Many of his oil paintings portray marine scenes at the start or end of the day, featuring boats and fishing activity in New England, particularly on Cape Ann, and in France. The treatment of water, sky, light and color in his works was representative of the American school of Impressionism. He was also skilled at watercolor and drawing in charcoal.

Biography Vincent was born in Chicago and began his artistic career working for Thomas G. Moses of Sosman and Landis as a scenic painter for theaters, creating elaborate backdrops.

His earliest known oil paintings often depicted rural scenes of towns and farms outside of Chicago. In 1893, he exhibited at the World's Fair in Chicago. He also won the Turnbull Prize in 1918, and the Porter Prize in 1925. In 1928, he was recognized with the Samuel Twybill Shaw prize for watercolor. He also won the Paul L. Hammond prize given by the New York Watercolor Club for his painting Rockport Harbor. and the North Shore Art Association. Street scenes and landscapes of the local granite quarries also attracted his eye, but he was continuously drawn to seaside settings.

In the 1920s, he found new subjects through travels in Europe, including England, Italy (Venice and Chioggia) and France (Saint-Tropez, Menton). While in Brittany, he produced a series of scenes of Concarneau, a small fishing village.

Personal life Vincent was married twice, to Catherine F. Ryan in Chicago in 1884, with whom he had two children, and then to Mildred Deitz in New York City in 1916.