Stephen Alonzo Schoff
Encyclopedia
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
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Biography
Stephen Alonzo Schoff was born in Danville, VermontDanville, Vermont
Danville is a town in Caledonia County, Vermont, United States. It was named for the 18th-century French cartographer Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville...
, January 16, 1818, and grew up in Newburyport, Massachusetts
Newburyport, Massachusetts
Newburyport is a small coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, 35 miles northeast of Boston. The population was 21,189 at the 2000 census. A historic seaport with a vibrant tourism industry, Newburyport includes part of Plum Island...
. He took up engraving at age 16 as an apprentice under Oliver Pelton of Boston, and then studied under Joseph Andrews, a more accomplished Boston engraver, with whom he visited Europe in 1839. He spent about two years in Paris, studying drawing at the school of Hippolyte Delaroche
Hippolyte Delaroche
Hippolyte Delaroche , commonly known as Paul Delaroche, was a French painter born in Paris. Delaroche was born into a wealthy family and was trained by Antoine-Jean, Baron Gros, who then painted life-size histories and had many students.The first Delaroche picture exhibited was the large Josabeth...
, and perfecting himself in his art. While in Europe he befriended Asher B. Durand, John William Casilear
John William Casilear
John William Casilear was an American landscape artist belonging to the Hudson River School.Casilear was born in New York City. His first professional training was under prominent New York engraver Peter Maverick in the 1820s, then with Asher Durand, himself an engraver at the time...
and John Frederick Kensett
John Frederick Kensett
John Frederick Kensett was an American artist and engraver. He attended school at Cheshire Academy, and studied engraving with his immigrant father, Thomas Kensett, and later with his uncle, Alfred Dagget...
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After his return to the United States he was soon employed upon his first important work, "Caius Marius on the Ruins of Carthage," after John Vanderlyn
John Vanderlyn
John Vanderlyn was an American neoclassicist painter.-Biography:Vanderlyn was born at Kingston, New York. He was employed by a print-seller in New York, and was first instructed in art by Archibald Robinson , a Scotsman who was afterwards one of the directors of the American Academy of the Fine Arts...
. This plate was issued about 1843 by the Apollo Association (later known as the American Art-Union). In 1844 he was accepted as an Associate Member of the National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
. Schoff was employed by a number of bank note companies, including: Toppan, Carpenter & Company, the John A. Lowell Company of Boston, the Continental Bank Note Company, the National Bank Note Company, and the American Bank Note Company
American Bank Note Company
The American Bank Note Company was a major worldwide engraver of national currency and postage stamps. Currently it engraves and prints stock and bond certificates.-History:Robert Scot, the first official engraver of the young U.S...
of New York. In 1858 he kept a studio in Boston on Washington Street
Washington Street (Boston)
Washington Street is a street originating in downtown Boston, Massachusetts that extends southwestward to the Massachusetts-Rhode Island state line. The majority of it was built as the Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike in the early nineteenth century...
and lived in Newtonville. He was also employed at the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing for three or four years starting in 1869.
Schoff befriended the American artist William Morris Hunt
William Morris Hunt
William Morris Hunt , American painter, was born at Brattleboro, Vermont to Jane Maria Hunt and Hon. Jonathan Hunt, who raised one of the preeminent families in American art...
during the 1860's and engraved or etched a number of plates after Hunt's works. Schoff was best known for his portraiture. His portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
after a sketch by Samuel W. Rowse
Samuel W. Rowse
Samuel Worcester Rowse was an American artist.-Works:His more famous works, mostly drawings in black and white, and in crayon, include:*Ralph Waldo Emerson *Nathaniel Hawthorne*Arthur Hugh Clough...
was considered one of his best. Among his other noteworthy portraits are Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. was an American physician, professor, lecturer, and author. Regarded by his peers as one of the best writers of the 19th century, he is considered a member of the Fireside Poets. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat...
, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...
, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
, George Eliot
George Eliot
Mary Anne Evans , better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era...
, John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier was an influential American Quaker poet and ardent advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. He is usually listed as one of the Fireside Poets...
, Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
, Emanuel Swedenborg
Emanuel Swedenborg
was a Swedish scientist, philosopher, and theologian. He has been termed a Christian mystic by some sources, including the Encyclopædia Britannica online version, and the Encyclopedia of Religion , which starts its article with the description that he was a "Swedish scientist and mystic." Others...
and a self-portrait after a W.H.W. Bicknell photograph.
His work took on a freer, looser appearance in the later part of his career. Schoff’s was able to overcome the rigidity of line engraving and adapted to the newer forms of etching that were then becoming popular. Sylvester Rosa Koehler
Sylvester Rosa Koehler
Sylvester Rosa Koehler was an author, and the first curator of prints at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston....
, curator of the print departments at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Smithsonian Institution, published a number of books and portfolios which included etchings by Schoff. He remained productive until two years prior to his death in Norfolk, Connecticut
Norfolk, Connecticut
Norfolk is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 1,660 at the 2000 census.Norfolk is perhaps best known as the site of the Yale Summer School of Music – Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, which hosts an annual chamber music concert series in "the Music Shed," a...
on May 6, 1904.
Schoff lived in a number of locations, including New York, Washington D.C., Connecticut, and Vermont, but for most of his life he resided in Newton, Massachusetts
Newton, Massachusetts
Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States bordered to the east by Boston. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of Newton was 85,146, making it the eleventh largest city in the state.-Villages:...
, where he was a long-standing member of the Swedenborgian
Swedenborgian
A Swedenborgian is the doctrines, beliefs, and practices of the Church of the New Jerusalem, and is an adjective describing a person or an organization that understands the Bible through the theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg....
New Jerusalem Church.
Legacy
S.A. Schoff received his greatest recognition in 1979, some 75 years after his death, when the Smithsonian InstitutionSmithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
presented an exhibition entitled “An Engraver’s Potpourri, The Life and Times of a 19th Century Banknote Engraver” with a collection of prints and engravings he collected during his lifetime. The Smithsonian still maintains a “Schoff Collection” as part of their “150 Years of Print Collecting at the Smithsonian” exhibit. There are also large collections of his work housed in the print rooms of the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
, Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
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