Man and Woman attributed to Edmund Charles Tarbell (Massachusetts, 1862-1938), double sided pastel drawings on artist paper, circa early 20th century, loose - 17" x 22 1/2"
 
Edmund Charles Tarbell was an Impressionist painter. A member of the Ten American Painters, he was also a leading member of a group of painters which came to be known as the Boston School. As a youth, Tarbell took evening art lessons from George H. Bartlett at the Massachusetts Normal Art School. Between 1877 and 1880, he apprenticed at the Forbes Lithographic Company in Boston. In 1879, he entered the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, studying under Otto Grundmann. He matriculated in the same class with Robert Lewis Reid and Frank Weston Benson, two other future members of the Ten American Painters. Tarbell was encouraged to continue his education in Paris. Consequently, in 1883 he entered the Académie Julian to study under Gustave Boulanger and Jules Joseph Lefebvre. Paris exposed him to rigorous academic training, which invariably included copying Old Master paintings at the Louvre, but also to the Impressionist movement then sweeping the city's galleries. That duality would inform his work. In 1884, Tarbell's education included a Grand Tour to Italy, and the following year to Belgium, Germany and Brittany. Tarbell returned to Boston in 1886, where he began his career as an illustrator, private art instructor and portrait painter. Preferring to work from posed models, Tarbell often painted those immediately at hand—his wife, four children, and grandchildren. His paintings illustrate their lives. In 1889, Tarbell assumed the position of his former mentor, Otto Grundmann, at the Museum School, where he was a popular teacher. His students included Bertha Coolidge, Margaret Fitzhugh Browne, Marie Danforth Page, F. Luis Mora, Marguerite Stuber Pearson, and Lilian Westcott Hale. So pervasive was his influence on Boston painting that his followers were dubbed "The Tarbellites." He later served as the first president of the The Guild of Boston Artists in 1914, serving through 1924. Tarbell painted portraits of many notable individuals, including industrialist Henry Clay Frick, Yale University President Timothy Dwight V, and U.S. presidents Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. His work was also part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics. He was elected a full member of the National Academy of Design in 1906, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1927. Tarbell's work was widely exhibited and he was the recipient of numerous awards and medals, including the Thomas B. Clarke prize of the National Academy of Design (1890, 1894, and 1900), Columbian Exposition Medal (1893), and Lippincott Prize, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1895).