Wakeman Holberton (1839-1898) American, (2) Oil on Canvas Fish Paintings. One depicts a striped bass swimming to the right, the other a red drum (redfish) swimming to the left. Both signed bottom right and dated 1896. 

Condition: Minor paint loss to red drum painting. 

Overall Size: (each) 25 1/2 x 19 1/4 in. 

Sight Size: 19 1/2 x 13 1/2 in. 

#4465 

Wakeman Holberton was born in New York City in 1839. He was a direct descendant of the Pilgrims who came to America on the Mayflower from Plymouth, England. However, unlike his father and the generations before him who became sailors or captains, Holberton felt called to the outdoors from an early age, becoming one of the best flycasters of his day. He traveled to Newfoundland and Labrador to hunt caribou and made it a personal mission to fish every lake in America. His early academic education was in New York City, and he finished in Europe, where he was exposed to the works of the Old Masters. However, he did not pursue art until after joining the Excelsior Brigade under Daniel E. Sickles in the Civil War. In 1861 he contracted typhoid and was confined to a bed at their camp on the Potomac, and his father came to care for him, despite being sick with diphtheria himself. His father’s care helped him overcome the disease, but when his father contracted typhoid from him and died the following year it profoundly affected him for the rest of his life. During his convalescence and grieving he took up sketching and painting to occupy his thoughts, and devoted himself solely to it at the close of the war, joining the Brooklyn Art Association. In 1867 he moved to Hackensack, New Jersey, where he studied under the artist Thomas S. Cumming. He fell in love with and married his mentor’s daughter, Sarah, the following year, having two sons with her. From the 1870s onward he spent more and more time in the woods along the seashore and inland rivers, fishing, hunting, and painting his many conquests. Aside from the occasional portrait and still life, his devotion to sports and animal art was unrivaled at the time. He regularly contributed articles and illustrations to Forest and Stream Magazine, and published “The Art of Angling” in 1887, a book which is still considered the definitive American text on the subject to this day. Holberton died in Hackensack in 1898, and his work can still be seen on display at the Winterthur Museum and Library in Delaware, the Addison Gallery of American Art in Massachusetts, and in the Smithsonian.

Minor paint loss to red drum painting.