Sartain, John
SARTAIN, JOHN (1808-1897). American artist, was born in London, England, on the 24th of October 1808. At the age of twenty-two he emigrated to America, and settled in Philadelphia. He was the pioneer of mezzotint engraving in America. Early in his career he painted portraits in oil and made miniatures; he engraved plates in 1841-1848 for Graham's Magazine, published by George Rex Graham (1813-1894); became editor and proprietor of Campbell's Foreign Semi-Monthly Magazine in 1843; and from 1849-1852 published with Graham Sartain's Union Magazine. He had charge of the art department of the Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia, in 1876; took a prominent part in the work of the committee on the Washington Memorial, by Rudolf Siemering, in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia; designed medallions for the monument to Washington and Lafayette erected in 1869 in Monument Cemetery, Philadelphia; and was a member of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and a cavaliere of the Royal Equestrian Order of the Crown of Italy. He died in Philadelphia on the 25th of October 1897. His Reminiscences of a Very Old Man (New York, 1899) are of unusual interest. Of his children WILLIAM SARTAIN (b. 1843), landscape and figure painter, was born at Philadelphia on the 21st of November 1843, studied under his father and under Leon Bonnat, Paris, was one of the founders of the Society of American Artists, and became an associate of the National Academy of Design. Another son, SAMUEL SARTAIN (1830-1906), and a daughter, EMILY SARTAIN (b. 1841), who in 1886 became principal of the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, were also American artists.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
