Henry McCarter

Henry Bainbridge McCarter (1864–1942) was an American illustrator and painter known for his influence on the modernistic art movements. McCarter worked as an illustrator in New York before becoming an instructor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for forty years. He won numerous medals for illustration, watercolor and oil painting including the 1938 Temple Gold Medal.

Early life and education McCarter was born 5 July 1864 in Norristown, Pennsylvania. In 1879, he began attending the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine arts where one of his instructors was Thomas Eakins. However, he described the five years of his studies there as "lost years." and the first instructor of illustration at his former school, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Charles Demuth, Norman Carton, and Arthur B. Carles.

Awards McCarter received numerous awards during his career, including: a bronze medal at the Buffalo Exposition (1901); silver medal at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904); the Beck Prize at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA (1906); gold medal at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition (1915); the Joseph Pennell Memorial Prize for watercolor (PAFA (1940); the gold medal from the Art Club of Philadelphia (1936); and the Temple Gold Medal at the 134th Annual Exhibition of Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1938).

He won the Fellowship Gold Medal for his “dreamlike and ethereal” oil painting titled Old Trappe Church in 1941.

Personal life McCarter neither married nor had children. He died of a heart attack on 20 November 1942 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, aged 76. McCarter was buried at the Church of Messiah Cemetery in Gwynedd, Pennsylvania

Selected works