Artist Bio
Beal, Reynolds
(1867-1951) Reynolds Beal came from an affluent and artistic family; of
several artistically gifted sons, he and his brother Gifford made
careers in art. Beal was born in the Bronx and studied marine
engineering at Cornell. He studied art at the Art Students League with
John Twatchtman. In 1892 he left the League to study with William
Merritt Chase at the Shinnecock School. For many years Beal was torn
between careers in art and ship designing, but his family’s affluence
allowed him to maintain a lifestyle as both an artist and a yachtsman.
He spent years between marine-related jobs and a life as an artist,
often plagued by “nervous prostration.” In 1891 Beal received his only
professional commission, illustrations for a book of nautical poems,
for which he produced over seventy monochromatic watercolors rendered
in gray or sepia. Beal established a second studio at Henry Ward
Ranger’s art colony in Noank, Connecticut from 1900 to 1907. Ranger,
who had been active in the Old Lyme Colony, was one of the major
influences on Beal’s career, along with Chase. After 1912 Beal spent
more time in the Hudson River Valley, painting the itinerant circuses
that traveled through the area, and those whimsical watercolor sketches
remain some of his most popular works. He also worked in Province-town,
Bermuda, the Caribbean, , Central America, Europe, and on the West
Coast. He traveled and painted with Childe Hassam, William Glackens,
and H. Dudley Murphy. With Bellows, Glackens, Hassam, Prendergast and
Sloan he founded the Society of Independent Artists and the New Society
of Artists. For many years he worked in Rockport and Gloucester,
Massachusetts. He was most active from 1910 to 1920, exhibiting at many
museums and galleries. After 1940 he did little painting due to
illness. He died in Rockport, Massachusetts in 1951, and today is
considered both an Impressionist and a modernist painter. No items found.