Daily Yellowstone Journal

Artists Who Were Once Sign Painters.

There are not a few instances of sign painters abandoning their craft for a higher sphere in art. And of American artists especially a number have begun in this humble line. Henry Smith Mount, a brother of the more talented William Sidney Mount, though a sign painter, executed some creditable pieces of still life and became an A. N. A. in 1839. W. S. Mount first associated with his brother, showed a capacity for a higher order of art. He was one of our earlier genre painters, devoting himself mainly to depicting the humors of American rustic life. Francis A. Silva and Arthur Quartley, the marine painters, now dead, began their careers as sign painters. So did William Hart, the clever genre painter, who of late has been painting subjects a la Alma Tadema. Worthington Whittredge and William Louis Sonntag, both now well known as landscape painters, were painting signs together in Cincinnati a little more than forty years ago. New York Times.