Albert Gallatin Hoit

Albert Gallatin Hoit (December 13, 1809 – December 18, 1856) was an American painter who lived in Boston, Massachusetts. He painted portraits of William Henry Harrison, Daniel Webster and Brenton Halliburton.

Biography

Hoit was born in Sandwich, New Hampshire, December 13, 1809,[1] to Gen. Daniel Hoit and Sally Flanders. Siblings included William Henry Hoit.[2] Hoit graduated from Dartmouth College in 1829.[3] He married Susan Hanson in 1838;[2] children included Anna M. Hoit.[4]

He "devoted his life to portrait painting, first at Portland, Maine, in 1831, and then in Bangor and Belfast, Maine, and St. John's, N.B. until Boston, Mass., became his permanent home in 1839."[2] He also travelled in Europe, "Oct. 1842 to July 1844, ... enjoying the galleries of art in Italy, Paris, and London."[2] He created portraits of Pietro Bachi, Johanna Robinson Hazen, J. Eames, and others. He painted a portrait of Daniel Webster "for Paran Stevens, which hung for years in the Revere House, Boston, and now belongs to the Union League Club, New York."[5]

He was affiliated with the Boston Artists' Association; and exhibited at the gallery of the New England Art Union in the 1850s. In 1848, he kept a studio on Tremont Row in Boston, and lived in Roxbury.[6] By 1852 he had moved his studio to Washington Street.[7] He died in Jamaica Plain, December 18, 1856, at age 47.

Works by Hoit are in the collection of the Sandwich Historical Society in New Hampshire,[8] the New Brunswick Museum and the National Gallery of Canada.

References

National Gallery of Canada
George Thomas Chapman. Sketches of the alumni of Dartmouth College: from the first graduation in 1771 to the present time, with a brief history of the institution. Cambridge, Mass.: Riverside Press, 1867.
Portraits of New Hampshire public men and others. New England historical and genealogical register, Volume 37, July 1883.
Yale College. History of the class of 1903. 1906.
Life portraits of Daniel Webster. McClure's Magazine, 1897; p.620.
City directory of Boston, 1848.
Boston Directory 1852.

Sandwich Historical Society

Image gallery

William Henry Harrison, 1840

Daniel Webster

Brenton Halliburton, 1849

Johanna Robinson Hazen, 1852