George Jacob Beck Art for Sale and Sold Prices

b. 1748 - d. 1812

George Jacob Beck (b Ellford, England 1748-50 d Lexington, KY December 14, 1812) American Painter. Listed as a portrait painter in the 1806 Lexington, Kentucky directory, was better known for his landscapes which unquestionably contributed to the popularity of American views. Born at Ellford, England, Beck was the youngest son of a Staffordshire farmer. In 1795 he set forth for America, landing in Norfolk, Virginia. He lived successfully in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Ohio and ultimately, around 1804/5, in Lexington where he died on December 14, 1812. "Among all the foreign-trained who came here in the Federal era, George Beck had the most substantial and the best mastered landscape style...Beck's superiority in craft enabled him to render the rocks with a strength sufficient to withstand the turbulent rush and falling weight of water...[and] to construct the forms of rock and tree, to give the solidity of earth, and even...to modulate values toward a distant horizon." (Excerpted from: Virgil Barker, American Painting, The MacMillan Co., New York, 1950, page 290)(Credit: Sotheby's, New York, September 26, 2008, Property of Rear Admiral Edward P. Moore and Barbara Bingham Moore, lot 35)