Biografie von Marcus MOTE (1817-1898)

Birth place: near West Milton, OH

Death place: Richmond, IN

Addresses: Richmond, IN

Profession: Portrait and religious painter, photographer

Studied: Robert Conner's Sch. Design, Cincinnati, 1850s

Exhibited: Lebanon Fair, 1859

Work: Warren Co. Hist. Soc., Lebanon, OH ("Place of My Wife's Nativity"); Ohio Hist. Soc., Glendower Museum, Lebanon, OH (portrait of Lucy Cowen, 1856); Earlham College, Richmond, IN ("Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1844," 1885)

Comments: Mote became a painter in spite of opposition from his Quaker family and friends. In 1837 married one of his students from the school where he taught near Lebanon (OH). Lebanon was the center of his activity as a portrait painter; but he also painted coaches for a company in Waynesville (OH), designed election posters and newspaper advertisements, did some lithographic work, and took daguerreotypes and photographs. During 1853 and 1854 he painted a panorama of Uncle Tom's Cabin and several others on religious subjects. About 1866 Mote moved his family to Richmond (IN); he had visited Richmond for Quaker yearly meetings since 1836 and documented those events in his works. He taught in the public and Sunday schools there and opened the Richmond Academy of Design, the earliest such institution in Indiana. He was assisted at the academy at various times by Samantha Hankins, Sue Spence, Edith Adcock, and Lydia Jackson. Alden Mote, a nephew, was also a painter (see entry). Marcus died at the Easthaven Hospital for the Insane.

Sources: G&W; Phillips, Marcus Mote, Quaker Artist"; Thornburg, "The Panoramas of Marcus Mote"; Burnet, Art and Artists of Indiana, 385; Peat, Pioneer Painters of Indiana.; Gerdts, Art Across America, vol. 2: 257 (with repro.)."