Gallery

Lemuel David Eldred apprenticed with William Bradford and in 1880 had formal training in Paris, but retained in his best pictures a planar, Yankee austerity that seems at times primitive, at times modern. Born in Fairhaven, Massachusetts March 15, 1850, he exhibited considerable artistic talent as a child. With the support of his parents, he made his way to the Academie Julien and later embarked on a Mediterranean tour that included Gibraltar, Venice, Alexandria, and the Nile River. Once home, he soon established a studio in Boston, the city where he would make his career. He died November 24, 1921 in New Bedford MA.

Eldred was a fairly prolific painter, but he was an infrequent exhibitor. He contributed six paintings to the Boston Art Club during the years 1876 to 1886. He exhibited at the American Society of Painters in Watercolors in 1875 and at the National Academy of Design in 1876.

Eldred’s favorite subject was the sea, a passion he developed as a youth. He painted costal scenes all along the shores of Massachusetts, Maine, the Bay of Fundy, and the St. Lawrence River. His White Mountain paintings were often of the Androscoggin Valley.

On June 15, 1880 Eldred auctioned 50 paintings at Ellis’s Fine Art Rooms in New Bedford MA. The following are paintings listed with definitive White Mountain titles: # 22 Madison , NH $250; #24 Androscoggin River $350; #27 White Horse Ledge $225; #28 Mount Madison $450; #29 Moat Mountain $500; #32 The Androscoggin Intervale $300; #40 Mount Moriah – Androscoggin $475; #47 Mount Madison and the Androscoggin River $1100; #48 White Mountains $700.

Gravestone

Signatures

References
All that Is Glorious around Us
Eldred in Print & Recollections of a Fairhaven Artist