John Quidor (January 26, 1801 – December 13, 1881) was a historical and literary painter from the United States.
He is known to have painted approximately 35 canvases, the majority of which are based on Washington Irving’s stories about Dutch New York, drawing inspiration from the Hudson Valley and English painters such as William Hogarth, Isaac Cruikshank, James Gillray, Joseph Wright of Derby, and George Morland.
John Quidor was born in Tappan, New York in 1801. In 1810, his family relocated to New York City. He began an apprenticeship with John Wesley Jarvis (where artist Henry Inman was also training) in 1818, at the age of 17, and this was the only artistic training he received.
The apprenticeship didn’t work out. In 1822, Quidor sued Jarvis for breach of indenture after feeling that Jarvis ignored him and preferred Inman over him.
Quidor was successful in his lawsuit, receiving $251.35 in damages. The lawsuit did more to harm his reputation than Jarvis’ because he had to acknowledge that he had received insufficient training.
After finishing his apprenticeship, Quidor worked for the fire departments of New York painting banners and adding finishing touches to steamboats and fire engines. It is known that none of his decorative creations survived.
He started painting literary themes in 1823 with his first two works, “Dorothea” and “Don Quixote Imagines Melisendra’s Rescue by a Moor,” both based on the novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. He then produced works based on the short stories Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving and the novel The Pioneers by James Fenimore Cooper.
He hired Thomas Bangs Thorpe and Charles Loring Elliott as his apprentices during this period of his career. “In all the time we were with Quidor, many months, I do not remember his giving us anything but easel room and one or two very common engravings to copy,” Thorpe recalled of his time spent working for Quidor. “He would absent himself from his studio for days and weeks together. When present, if not painting on a banner or engine back, he would generally lie at full length on the long bench.”
On December 16, 1835, a fire destroyed Quidor’s studio, which was located at 46 Canal Street. Quidor left New York as a result of that incident, two significant cholera outbreaks nearby, a financial collapse in the late 1830s, and other factors.
He relocated to Quincy, Illinois, in 1837, and in 1844 he bought a farm there for $8,000. To pay for the farm, he painted eight sizable religious canvases based on engravings of Benjamin West pieces. The whereabouts and condition of these canvases, which were displayed in New York in 1847, are currently unknown.
Returning to New York in 1851, Quidor remained there until his retirement in 1869. He changed his style at this time. In order to make his stylized, nervously rendered figures almost disappear into hazy backgrounds, he simplified his compositions and used a smaller range of colors, which he thinned with varnish. In 1868, he reportedly stopped painting. From 1869 until his passing in 1881, he resided in Jersey City, New Jersey, where his oldest daughter did as well.
