Eliphalet Frazer Andrews
Eliphalet Frazer Andrews, an American painter known primarily as a portraitist, established an art instruction curriculum at the behest of William Wilson Corcoran at his Corcoran School of Art, and served as its director, 1877–1902. He received many commissions to create both original portraits and copies of images of deceased famous Americans, which are displayed by federal, state, and local institutions. His art is housed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Ohio State Capitol, and numerous paintings at The White House and the United States Capitol.
Early life
Born in Steubenville, Ohio, to Dr. Alexander Hull and Eliza Ann Andrews, he received early training at Marietta College in Ohio, and further study in the Royal Prussian Academy, Berlin, in the atelier of Ludwig Knaus, at the Düsseldorf Academy and with Leon Bonnat at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris.Career
Following the election of his friend Rutherford B. Hayes as President Andrews moved to Washington, D.C.William Wilson Corcoran hired Andrews to establish an art instruction curriculum at his Corcoran School of Art. Andrews served as its director, 1877–1902, and later as the Corcoran Art Gallery until his death. Pupils included Catharine Carter Critcher and Daisy Blanche King.
Several federal government agencies, mostly through the Architect of the Capitol, Edward Clark, commissioned Andrews to make copies of existing portraits. Thus, several of his portraits, are in The White House collection, including posthumous full-length portraits of Martha Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Johnson. His Poppies and Edge of a Stream are at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Former Kentucky Lieutenant Governor John C. Underwood, President of the United Confederate Veterans, commissioned Andrews to make twenty portraits of prominent Confederates for a proposed Confederate Museum in Richmond, Virginia. The project was embroiled in litigation, and eleven paintings were sold in 1910 for unpaid storage fees by a Covington, Kentucky warehouse. Most ended up in Virginia, but three are in the collection of the Kentucky Museum at Western Kentucky University. The Confederate Memorial Association, led by Virginia lieutenant governor James Taylor Ellyson and financed by Thomas Fortune Ryan did build its headquarters in Richmond, which is now the Virginia Historical Society. Perhaps the most famous paintings therein are the "Four Seasons of the Confederacy" murals by Charles Hoffbauer.
Clarance Randolph Howard, son of Major William Key Howard of the Confederate States of America, great-grand-nephew of Francis Scott Key, and great-grandson of John Eager Howard, commissioned Eliphalet Frazer Andrews to complete a portrait of his wife, Mary French Howard, in 1908. It is one of the few known remaining original portraits by the artist of a non-political or military official.