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John White Allen Scott (1815-1907)

John White Allen Scott was a portrait, landscape, and marine painter, as well as a lithographer and engraver. He began his career as a lithographer with W.S. Pendleton in Boston. In the 1840s Scott and Fitz Henry Lane formed a business partnership to publish lithographs in Boston. Their partnership ended in 1847. By the late 1840s Scott began to exhibit his paintings at the Boston Athenaeum and the Boston Art Club. He became well known for his landscapes of the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Catskills of New York. At his death at age 92, he was the oldest member of the Boston Art Club. His work has been preserved at the Massachusetts State House in Boston.

Obituary from The Cambridge Tribune
Volume XXX, Number 3, 16 March 1907
Death of J. W. A. Scott. March 4th 1907
John W. A. Scott, 92 years old, died at his home, 44 Pleasant street, shortly after 11 o’clock, last week Monday, after an Illness of about a week. In the death of Mr. Scott, America loses probably her oldest painter, the one man who bridged the whole period of American art from Gilbert Stuart, Rembrant Peale, and Washington Allston to the present time, and he painted until within a few months of his death. He was the oldest living member of the Boston Art Club. Mr. Scott was born in Dorchester, and when he was 15 years of age he was apprenticed to W. S. Pendleton until he was 21. He worked in the various departments of the lithographic business, and later, with F. H. Lane, had a “shop” of his own, which was burned out in the first of the Tremont Temple fires. After this Mr. Scott devoted his life to painting, especially landscape and still life. For a number of years he painted in the Catskill Mountains and in the White Mountains, his pictures always finding a ready sale. For more than 30 years Mr. Scott lived in the little house at 44 Pleasant street, where he had a studio on the top floor. Here he painted and studied color up to the last. He was also a widely read man, and he possessed a remarkable memory. He could recite whole pages of Shakespeare after he was 90 years of age, and for a great many years he was deeply interested in spiritualism. The funeral was held on Thursday afternoon at his late residence. The services were conducted by Mrs. M. J. Willis, spiritualist. There was a large attendance of friends, including a delegation from the Boston Art Club. The body was cremated at Mount Auburn Cemetery.

Sketch Credit
Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society

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