Biografie von John Ross KEY (1837-1920)

Birth place: Hagerstown, MD

Death place: Baltimore, MD

Addresses: Wash., DC, 1917

Profession: Landscape painter and illustrator, etcher

Studied: mostly self taught, but also in Munich and Paris in 1873-75.

Exhibited: NAD, 1866-79; PAFA; Boston Athenaeum; Boston AC (1875-78); Mechanics Inst., San Fran., 1870; Centennial Expo, Phila., 1876 (gold medal, The Golden Gate"); S. Indp. A., 1917; Corcoran Gal., 1908."

Member: Soc. Wash. Artists; Boston AC.

Work: CGA; Wash. County Mus. FA; Maryland Hist. Soc.; Bancroft Lib., Univ. Calif., Berkeley; Oakland (CA) Mus.; Amon Carter Mus., Fort Worth, TX

Comments: Grandson of Francis Scott Key, author of The Star Spangled Banner," who raised him in Wash., DC. He was a draftsman with U.S. Coast Survey 1853-56, along with Gilbert Munger and Whistler. Had a studio in Boston before the Civil War. In 1863, he was with the Corps of Engineers at Charleston, SC, sketching the Federal siege of the Confederate city. During the period immediately after the war he worked in NYC and Boston. He was in San Francisco from c.1869-72 and painted views of Yosemite, Tahoe, Point Lobos, and the Mariposa sequoias. Over the years he worked in Chicago, St. Louis, Boston, NYC, and Baltimore, and painted the mountains of New Hampshire, as well as scenes in Virginia. From 1908-17, he settled in Wash., DC; then moved to Baltimore for the remaining three years of his life. Besides his paintings, Key was noted for his exceptional charcoal drawings. Cf. Francis Scott Key.

Sources: G&W; Art Annual, XVII, obit.; CAB; Clement and Hutton; Fielding; Thieme-Becker; Rutledge, PA; Cowdrey, NAD; Rutledge, Artists in the Life of Charleston. More recently, see Hughes, Artists in California; P & H Samuels; Campbell, New Hampshire Scenery; McMahan, Artists of Washington, D.C.; WW17."