American, 1857-1937

Charles Warren Eaton was an American artist best known for his tonalist, transcendentalist landscape paintings. Nicknamed the “Pine Tree Painter,” Eaton was born in Albany, New York and only became interested in art at the age of 22, after being exposed to the amateur paintings of a friend. In 1879, Eaton moved to New York City and attended night classes at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League. By the early 1880s Eaton was able to pursue art full time as he began to receive professional recognition.

Eaton was a follower of James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s aesthetic movement and incorporated Asian design principles of patterning and formal abstraction into his early works of human landscapes. In 1882, Eaton exhibited regularly at the National Academy of Design and in 1884 exhibited with the Society of American Artists. Eaton exhibited at the Macbeth Gallery in New York for over 30 years. In 1901, Eaton was elected to the National Academy of Design as an Associate Academician. Working in primarily oil and watercolor, Eaton was also a founding member of the American Watercolor society.

Eaton won the Inness Gold Medal in the annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design in 1904. In 1910 he resigned from the Academy but continued to show his work in its exhibitions. Eaton’s last major commission was a series of views of Glacier National Park executed in 1921 for the Northwestern Railroad Company.

Eaton retired in Bloomfield, New Jersey and passed away in 1937. His works are most notably now found in the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.