George Henry Durrie (June 6, 1820October 15, 1863) was an American landscape artist noted especially for his rural winter snow scenes, which became very popular after they were reproduced as lithographic prints by Currier and Ives.
Early life
Durrie was born in New Haven, Connecticut, one of six children born to John and Clarissa Clark Durrie, who were Hartford natives. The Durries moved to New Haven in 1818, where John Durrie became a partner in the printing firm of Durrie and Peck, stationers and book publishers. In 1837 John Durrie contracted with Nathaniel Jocelyn, a noted New Haven engraver and portrait painter, for painting instruction for George Durrie and his brother John. By 1839, George Durrie was painting portraits professionally in Hartford and Bethany, Connecticut, and in 1840, he was working in Meriden and Naugatuck, Connecticut.
Marriage and children
Durrie was a very religious person who usually attended two or more church services each Sunday. He also liked to sing, and played the viol. While he was working in Bethany, he stayed with the Wheeler family, and attended services at Christ Episcopal Church, where he became friends with the choir-master, Archibald Abner Perkins. A frequent dinner guest at the Perkins home, Durrie fell in love with Sarah Perkins, Archibald’s daughter, who was a school teacher in Hartford at that time. They married on September 14, 1841, and lived on Elm Street in New Haven. The Durries had three children, George Boice Durrie, born in 1842; Benjamin Woodhouse Durrie, born in 1847; and Mary Clarissa Durrie, born in 1852.
Professional life
For many years, Durrie made a living primarily as a portrait painter, executing hundreds of commissions. After marriage, he made frequent trips, traveling to New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia, fulfilling commissions and looking for new ones. His diary reveals that he was an enthusiastic railroad traveler, in the early days of the railroads. Durrie also painted what he called "fancy pieces", whimsical studies of still lives or stage actors, as well as painting scenes on window-shades and fireplace covers. But portrait painting commissions became scarcer when photography came on the scene, offering a cheaper alternative to painted portraits, and, as his account-book shows, Durrie rarely painted a portrait after 1851.
Durrie’s interest shifted to landscape painting, and while on the road, or at home, made frequent sketches of landscape elements that caught his eye. Around 1844 Durrie began painting water and snow scenes, and took a second place medal at the 1845 New Haven State Fair for two winter landscapes. Although he had some training in portrait work, Durrie was self-taught as a landscape artist. He was undoubtedly influenced both by the American Hudson River School, and also by European artists, by studying exhibitions of their work at the New Haven Statehouse, the Trumbull Gallery, and at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, as well as in New York City. Durrie himself exhibited regularly, both locally, and in New York City at the National Academy of Design and the American Artists’ Union, and his reputation grew. Durrie was especially known for his snow pieces, and would often make copies or near-copies of his most popular pieces, with modifications to order. The landscapes painted by Durrie offered a more intimate view than the panoramic landscapes painted by the Hudson River School, which was the leading school of American landscape painting. Colin Simkin notes that Durrie’s paintings took in a wide angle, but still "close enough to be within hailing distance" of the people who are always included in his scenes.