He lived in various parts of the United States including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and St. Augustine, Florida, and he also traveled in Europe and extensively in South America where he visited Brazil, Nicaragua, Columbia, Pueto Rico and Jamaica..

Heade was born in rural Pennsylvania and began his career as a portrait painter, studying with Quaker painters Edward and Thomas Hicks.  His early landscapes were rather amateur Hudson-River-Style views, but became much more professional with landscape subjects by the 1850s.  He also became fascinated by hummingbirds, a subject some historians describe as an obsession.  From 1865 to 1875, he painted a limited number of elaborate table top still lifes, and very late in his career, did lush botanical still lifes, especially in Florida.

While he was achieving success as a portrait painter in the 1840s and 50s, Martin Heade traveled continuously in Europe and America.  In the late 1850s, he moved to New York City and focused on landscape and shore scenes, inspired by the salt marshes around the Narragansett Bay region of Rhode Island.  More than 100 are extant, and they are categorized stylistically as luminist because they convey sombre, contemplative mood.

In 1863, he made the first of three trips to South America, first to find subject matter for illustrations on his book on hummingbirds.  The book was rejected by publishers, so in the 1870s, he began paintings hummingbirds and orchids together in lush tropical settings.  This subject matter was very startling to viewers because it was highly sensual as well as unprecedented.  In 1884, twenty years before he died, Heade settled in St. Augustine, Florida, painting seascapes, birds and still lifes, especially magnolias and cherokee roses.

Source:
Michael David Zellman, 300 Years of American Art
Peter Falk, Who Was Who in American Art

© 2000-2008 AskART. All rights reserved. AskART is a registered trademark. Used with permission.