George Dury


George Dury was a Bavarian portrait painter. He emigrated to the United States in 1849, and set up as an art teacher in Nashville, Tennessee. His work can be seen at the White House and the Tennessee State Museum.

Early life

Dury was born in Würzburg in the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1817, and trained as an artist in Munich. The king, Ludwig I of Bavaria, became his patron; Dury painted his Irish mistress Lola Montez. He also painted a miniature of Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia. Already before his emigration to the United States he had some contacts with Americans, having painted the portrait of Tennessee politician Felix Grundy. Dury emigrated to the United States in 1849, with his sister Josephine and Katherine Schaeffer, whom he married in Le Havre before taking ship.

Career

Dury first settled in East Tennessee, and relocated to Nashville, Tennessee in 1850, where he set up a studio and worked as a portraitist. With Confederate veteran Robert Loftin Newman, he "tried to establish an Academy of Fine Arts" in Nashville.Dury painted portraits of William Walker and Robert E. Lee; both are in the Tennessee State Museum, as is his portrait of Montez. He also painted James D. Porter, Robert Armstrong, William Gannaway Brownlow, Andrew Johnson, Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen, and William Brimage Bate. A portrait of Randal William McGavock is also attributed to him.
Sarah Childress Polk sat for Dury in 1878, when she was seventy-five; a few years later, he was asked to make a copy for the White House of George Healy's official portrait of her.

Death

Dury died on December 2, 1894 in Nashville, Tennessee.