Hunt, William Morris, 1824–79, American painter, b. Brattleboro, Vt., studied in Düsseldorf and Paris. He was greatly influenced by the Barbizon school and by J. F. Millet. During the Civil War he established himself in Boston, where he introduced the ideals and methods of the Barbizon school. As teacher and painter, Hunt exerted a widespread influence upon American art. He is thought to be the first American master to admit female students into his classes. His earliest works were usually figure pieces; he then turned to portraits and in his later years devoted himself chiefly to landscapes. Among his best-known paintings are Girl at a Fountain, The Bathers, and a landscape (Metropolitan Mus.); a portrait of Chief Justice Shaw (courthouse, Salem, Mass.); and The Flight of Night (Pennsylvania Acad. of the Fine Arts).
See biography by his granddaughter, Diana Holman-Hunt (1969).
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