Robert S. Duncanson " The fisherman on the path to Olana"

Robert S. Duncanson is noted as being one of ” the best landscape painter’s in the west”, according to European curators and experts. Being born a “free” slave in New York, from a Canadian slave owner, Robert S. Duncanson established himself as a master artist during a time in American history when men of color had no freedom or rights. Owning on of Robert S. Duncanson’s works of art is like owning an important piece of American history that cannot be recreated or replaced.

Robert S. Duncanson achieved unprecedented renown in the art world in the 19th century despite the adversity he faced as a freeborn “person of color”, earning national and international acclaim for his landscape paintings. He pursued his artistic career during a time of tremendous racial prejudice and was one the first African American artists to appropriate the landscape as part of his cultural heritage and as an expression of his cultural identity. He was a self trained artist and started his career as a apprentice working as a house painter (murals), portraiture, and landscape art in Cincinnati, Detroit, Montreal and London. His is attributed to Thomas Cole and William Sonntag to whom he traveled and studied with extensively. Many of his paintings were attributed to other well known Caucasian artists of the time due to racial prejudice and the need for him to earn a living in his trade. His formative years focused on portraits and murals from commissioned work. After traveling up to New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Canada his focused changed more to that around the Hudson River School movement and Ohio River Valley.

Robert S. Duncanson, Winslow Homer, Frederick Kensett

His artwork went almost obscure for the last 100 years making it difficult to come by. The average collector of his works is a private collector, however, recently, some of his select work and less known, yet exceptional works have come up at auction commanding between $45,000 – $325,000 per auction for both signed and unsigned works of art.  Of the many collectors of Robert S. Duncanson, QMR Fine Art Consulting, LLC specializes and owns a select amount of his works of art.

Robert S. Duncanson’s artwork can currently be viewed at the following Museums:

•  High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
• Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC
• Detroit Historical Museum, Detroit, MI
• Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH
• California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA
• Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
• Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
• New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ
• Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, OH
• Quebec Museum of Fine Arts, Quebec City, QC
• Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
• Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, OH
• The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
• The Dayton Art institute, Dayton, OH
• The Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO
• The Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, OH
• Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT

Robert S. Duncanson " Float Boat Men"