Meet the Weirs

In February of 1875, John Ferguson Weir wrote from New Haven, Connecticut to his brother Julian, then studying at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, “Don’t return, old boy, until your veins flow with the rich mother’s milk of Art.” John, Julian, and their artist father, Robert Walter Weir, saw themselves as the inheritors of European art traditions, repeatedly crossing the Atlantic to connect with their artistic heritage. Yet they were not expatriates. They settled in New York and New England where they painted, taught, and were leaders in American art circles throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth.

Robert Walter Weir was one of the first Americans to travel to Italy for art study (1824-1827). After his return, he became an Associate of the National Academy of Design in 1829, only four years after its founding, and a full Academician in 1831. A leader in New York art circles, he gained a reputation as a history painter. In 1834, he accepted the position of Instructor of Drawing at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he counted James Abbott McNeill Whistler among his students. He remained at West Point for forty-two years. His most well-known painting is his Embarkation of the Pilgrims for the Capitol rotunda in Washington, DC.

Among Robert Weir’s more famous pupils were his own sons, John Ferguson Weir and Julian Alden Weir, who like their father became artists and teachers. After establishing his reputation with two large paintings of industrial scenes, John taught at Yale University for forty-four years. There he established the first academic art program at an educational institution in the United States, basing his teaching on the French atelier system.

Julian studied under this system at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris for four years (1873-1877). Excelling as an academic painter, he later embraced the tenets of Impressionism, becoming a leader of the American Impressionists at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1915, he was elected president of the National Academy of Design.

Learn more about the Weirs (visit the Weir Farm National Historic Site Web page)