John Joseph Enneking

Enneking, born in Ohio and orphaned as a youth, served in the Union Army during the Civil War and was seriously injured. He moved to Boston, where he studied painting and lithography, and then went abroad, attending art schools in Munich and Paris. This exposed him to the intimate and meditative landscapes of the Barbizon painters and to the bold brushwork and color of the Impressionists. In 1876 he returned to New England, where he spent the remainder of his life. Enneking is perhaps best known for his poetic twilight woodland scenes with their unified tonalities and rich surfaces.

EXTENDED BIO

John Joseph Enneking (October 4, 1841- November 16, 1916) was an American Impressionist born of German ancestry in Minster, Ohio on 4 October 1841.

He was educated at Mount St. Mary's College, Cincinnati, served in the American Civil War in 1861-1862, studied art in New York and Boston, and gave it up because his eyes were weak, only to return to it after failing in the manufacture of tinware.

From 1873 to 1876 he studied in Münich under Schleich and Leier, and in Paris under Daubigny and Bonnat; and in 1878-1879 he studied in Paris again and sketched in the Netherlands. Enneking is a plein air painter, and his favorite subject is the November twilight of New England, and more generally the half lights of early spring, late autumn, and winter dawn and evening.

The Enneking Parkway in Hyde Park, Massachusetts is named after resident John Joseph Enneking.