Daniel Charles Grose was a prolific Canadian-American painter of the Hudson River School who was active between 1865 and 1900.
Some unfounded suppositions
An Irish painter by the name of Daniel Charles Grose who died in 1838 may have been the grandfather of the Canadian painter. The evidence is all circumstantial, however.
History
Daniel Charles Grose was born in 1832 in Whitby, England. He was one of a half-dozen children born to Daniel Henderson and Sarah Rachel Grose. The Grose family were actors and performers who travelled throughout the north of England for most of the 1830s and 1840s. Truly a family affair, a London paper in 1843 described a theatre under the management of Mr Grose as appearing to "have a gross of little Groses, who constitute his company." After serving in the Merchant Navy in the early 1850s, Daniel Charles Grose married his first wife, Louisa Askew, on June 8, 1856 at Chatham, Kent, England. He was living with his in laws in England in 1861 but by 1865 he and his wife had moved to Toronto, Ontario where he seems to have described himself for the first time as an artist. By 1868, Grose and Louisa had moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he lived extensively throughout the rest of his life. It is unclear what happened to Louisa, who was in the 1870 New York Census, but while visiting his family in Canada in 1875, Grose married his second wife Molly or Mary Jane White. This second marriage was not a happy one and after a couple of years they separated. Mary returned to her family in New Brunswick, but soon went back to New York where she died in 1881 of "exhaustion due to acute mania." It is possible that Grose was trying to not be found as he had moved to Washington DC where, in the 1880 census, he was calling himself Charles Daniel Grose. Grose's work indicates an affinity to the second generation of the Hudson River School. The Samuel Dorksy Museum of Art, lists two of his works as examples of the Hudson school. Most of Grose's exeunt work depicts pastoral landscapes, or romantic scenes with ruins. The earliest known Grose works are dated 1865 and consist of a series of landscapes in the province of Quebec. On May 25, 1881, in Washington, D.C., Grose married Harriet Estella Smith, also an artist. She was the daughter of Captain Dwight Hayden Smith and his wife Luana Elizabeth Smith of Alexandria, Virginia. Between 1881 and 1884 Grose and Harriet took a trip around the world. They moved back to Brooklyn but continued travelling nearly until his death, leaving New York again in 1895 and not returning from Australia until 1898. Grose was a member of and exhibited at the Brooklyn Art Association. Grose died in Alexandria at his mother-in-law's house on February 24, 1900. His funeral was held the next day in Washington at his former residence. His wife Harriet died in Brooklyn, New York on October 6, 1914.
Known works
Dated
1864
River Landscape - oil on canvas 9"x12" - signed - dated
1865: Grose's first dated paintings show scenes in the Canadian province of Quebec
Le Lac Beauport – oil on canvas – signed – dated
Quebec from Charlesbourg – oil on canvas – signed – dated
Afternoon by the Falls – oil on canvas – signed – dated
River Landscape 1 – oil on canvas – signed – dated
River Landscape 2 – oil on canvas – signed – dated
Lac de Deux Montages – oil on canvas – signed – dated –
Quebec Rapids – oil on canvas – signed – dated
Duck Shooting from a Boat – oil on canvas – signed – dated –
Paysage dans les Laurentides – oil on canvas – signed – dated
Paysage dans les Laurentides – oil on canvas – signed – dated
La Pêche à la nigogue – oil on canvas – signed – dated
1867:
Mill Dam - oil on canvas – signed – dated –
1870:
Moghul Palace in a Landscape - oil on canvas – signed – dated
1874:
Autumnal Sunset Over a Mill - oil on canvas – signed – dated
Paysage des environs de Québec – oil on canvas – signed – dated
