Gaul, NA, Gilbert
(1855-1919)
“The Market Cart”

Artist Biography

Gilbert Gaul, N.A. (1855-1919)

Born: Jersey City, NJ, lived NYC; Fall Creek Falls, TN; SC.

Known: Gilbert Gaul enjoyed early success as a painter and illustrator and teacher. His fellow artists considered him one of the finest figure painters of America. An illustrated account of his travels to Mexico, the West Indies, Panama, and Nicaragua was exhibited at the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He lived in Van Buren, TN, four years and painted the Union and confederate armies, as well as some rural scenes.

Studied: Claverack Military Academy; National Academy of Design with L. E. Wilmarth; Art Students League; J. G. Brown in NYC; Art Students League

Member: Associate member of the National Academy of Design, 1879; National Academician, 1888

Exhibitions: National Academy of Design; Boston Art Club; Art Institute of Chicago; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; Brooklyn Art Association; American Art Association; Paris Expo; Columbian Expo, Chicago; Pan-Am Expo, Buffalo; Appalachian Expo, Knoxville.

Taught: the Cumberland Female College in McMinnville, TN, in 1904.

Work: Oakland Museum; Toledo Museum; Democratic Club, NYC; Gilcrease Inst., Tulsa; Peabody Inst., Baltimore; C. R. Smith Collection; Tennessee State Museum

Publications: He was a historical illustrator of the Civil War and Native American life in the Old West. His best known collection of illustrations appears in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. His main project was the developing of a series of paintings to be issued in a portfolio devoted to events that occurred during the Civil War. The portfolio, entitled “With the Confederate Color”, was issued in 1907 by the Southern Art Publishing Company, organized especially to reproduce this series of paintings. In 1886 J.B. Lippincott of Philadelphia published the Book of America Figure Painters with the collaboration of the leading artists of the day. Each painter was represented by a work completed that year. Gaul’s contribution was “John Burns at Gettysburg”.