Details
Title Newsam, Albert
Date May 20, 1809-November 20, 1864
Description Albert Newsam, a deaf artist born in Steubenville, Ohio on May 20, 1809, was the premier Philadelphia lithographic artist of portraiture during the mid 19th century. Orphaned at an early age, Newsam relocated to Philadelphia in 1820 with con man William Davis who had dubiously taken over his guardianship from inn keeper William Hamilton. Newsam showed a natural inclination for drawing and while "under the care" of Davis was admitted in 1820 to the recently established Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. At the institution, Newsam studied under artist George Catlin and graduated as a model student in 1826.
In 1827, he was placed in an apprenticeship with engraver and later lithographer C. G. Childs. Under Child's tutelage, he excelled as a lithographic portraitist and became Child's primary artist of this genre in the early 1830s and received notice in a number of newspapers throughout the country. As a result of his success in lithography, in 1833, Newsam presented the state House of Representatives with specimens of his lithographs as a testimony of gratitude that was duly acknowledged by the legislature. When Child's left the trade in 1835, Newsam remained in the employ of his successors Lehman & Duval, which later became the establishment of P. S. Duval in 1837. He would remain as an artist for Duval for the rest of his career, including creating portraits for McKenney & Hall's "History of the Indian Tribes of North America" (1837); Thomas Wagner's periodical "The U.S. Ecclesiastical Gallery"(1841); and the C.S. William series "Portraits of the Presidents" published in 1846.
Although Newsam primarily delineated portraits, he also designed a small number of non portraits including a William Norris manufactured locomotive (ca. 1837); an advertisement for Richard Dunn's Chinese collection (ca. 1838); and a view of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and Dumb (1851). In 1853 he also designed the structure for the monument erected to deaf educator Thomas Galludet in Hartford, Ct. in 1854.
City directory and census listings for Newsam are few and as a consequence, information about his residences during his career is sparse. The only residential address known for Newsam was when he resided at 330 Walnut Street in 1859. He previously lived in the South Ward (i.e., Center City) in a boarding house in 1850. Newsam married "E.R." in 1834, but the marriage proved short and unhappy and was annulled shortly thereafter. Throughout his career, Newsam suffered from financial instability. He received back pay from notes of Childs over a decade (1835-1846); often relied on patron John A. McAllister to help him discover and settle his debts owed; and was robbed of his collection of European lithographs (in which he invested much of his money) a few years before his death.
By the end of the 1850s, Newsam's career began to wind down due to illness - eye problems in 1857 and a stroke in 1859 - as well as the rise of portrait photography. By 1860, he remained at Pennsylvania Hospital where he continued to recdover from his stroke, and then resided in West Philadelphia before friend McAllister secured funding for his residency at the Dr. John A. Brown's Living Home for the Sick and Well, near Wilmington, Delaware in 1862. Newsam resided at the home until his death on November 20, 1864.
Is part of Philadelphia on Stone Biographical Dictionary of Lithographers
Portraits from the collections of the Library Company of Philadelphia.
References See Childs, Cephas G.; Duval, P. S.; and Wagner, Thomas.
Has format LCP-portraitprint-Newsam-8313-F-86.jpg
LCP-cdv-portrait-Newsam-8346-F-160a.jpg
LCP-cdv-portrait-Newsam-P-2282-115.jpg
Call number Philadelphia on Stone Biographical Dictionary of Lithographers
Bibliographic citation Albert Newsam Print Collection (V-100), Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Albert Newsam Papers (McA MSS 003), The Library Company of Philadelphia
Census 1850, 1860
Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, Petition of Peter S. Duval, November 10, 1859
Groce & Wallace, 470
Library Company of Philadelphia research file
Philadelphia Business & City Directories 1856-1859 (intermittently)
Peters, 296-300
PMA, Philadelphia: Three Centuries of American Art, 310-11
Pyatt, Memoir of Albert Newsam: Deaf Mute Artist (1868)
Reaves, "Portraits for Every Parlor" Albert Newsam ..." American Portrait Prints:... (Charlottesville, 1984)
Stauffer, "Lithographic Portraits of Albert Newsam," PMHB 24 (1900), 267-289
WWWAA, 2415
Image file LCP-portraitprint-Newsam-8313-F-86
LCP-cdv-portrait-Newsam-8346-F-160a
LCP-cdv-portrait-Newsam-P-2282-115