International Journal of Art and Art History

The Art of Theodore F. Rose: Nineteenth Century Lithographer and Painter
Dr. Joseph H. Hall, IV

Abstract
Theodore F. Rose is a late-nineteenth century lithographer and painter, who is littleknown, as an artist, among both the general public and among professional art historians in even the Philadelphia-New Jersey area. He was a competent commercial lithographer being most well-known for his black and white illustrations of the beautiful homes and street scenes of the resort towns of the New Jersey Coast in the 1870’s. However, Rose was also an accomplished painter in oils, using a very dark palette, in almost exclusively outdoor settings, with the exception being at least one charming trompe l’oeil still life. I have been unable to link him to any of the early art training centers in Philadelphia in the nineteenth century. It is much more likely that he became apprenticed, or indentured, to a lithographer, working for one of the many printers or publishers in the city, where drawing and painting skills would have been developed as well. Rose had a very rough early life, losing family to disease, and serving in the United States Civil War. It is hypothesized that his melancholy background contributed to the somber, or threatening, atmosphere of his paintings.

Full Text: PDF       DOI: 10.15640/ijaah.v4n2a2