Samuel Finley Breese Morse Art for Sale at Auction

Sculptor, Painter, b. 1791 - d. 1872

(born 27 April 1791Charlestown, MA; died 2 April 1872 New York, NY) American painter. Most well known for the invention of the telegraph and Morse code, Samuel Finley Breese Morse started his career as a painter. He attended Phillips Academy in Andover, MA and went on to study at Yale University from 1805-10. After graduating from Yale he moved to Boston where he studied with the painter Washington Allston, who encouraged him to travel to England in 1811 where he attended the Royal Academy of Art. His most famous commission was of the French general Lafayette during his stay in the United States from 1824-6, during which time Morse’s wife unexpectedly passed away after childbirth. In 1826 he established the National Academy of Design and became its first president. In 1829 he took a three-year tour of Europe where he studied the works of the Old Masters. Morse strongly believed that art had the power to influence a person’s politics and stir patriotic passion, but his inability to create successful historical paintings throughout his career and his failure to receive a commission to paint a mural for the Capitol Rotunda led Morse to finally reject painting and instead focus on inventing in 1837, which he spent the remainder of his life working on.