Seated Male Nude

The leading portraitist in New York during the post-Civil War period--and president of the National Academy of Design from 1862 to 1870 and from 1877 to 1890--Daniel Huntington was a conservative painter, a man highly respected by his clients and colleagues throughout his long career. Although he traveled widely and frequently during the mid- and late nineteenth century, he shunned new artistic concepts and styles. As a staunch academician in technique and manner, Huntington understood that proper draftsmanship was at the core of accomplished painting. His extant drawings number over a thousand, and the vast majority are from his early career, although he continued sketching as long as he lived. The present drawing is a student exercise from a class Huntington took at the National Academy in 1838. It displays proficiency in modeling and highlighting and a commendable grasp of human anatomy and foreshortening that he would have learned from drawing statuary before advancing to life studies.