A landscape and marine artist, George
Symons was one of America's more noted plein-air painters who
combined styles of impressionism and realism. His works are cited
for their energy and simplicity, and he often did panoramic views.
He was born in Chicago, Illinois in
1861, with the name of George Gardner Simon, but he changed his
last name to Symons when he returned from study in England because
of concern about anti-semitism. Not much is known about his early
life. He first studied at the Chicago Art Institute where he became
a close, life-long friend of William Wendt. They painted together
in California and then in Cornwall, England in 1898. He also studied
in Paris, and Munich and London, and joining a colony of artists
at St. Ives, adopted the plein-air techniques of Julius Olsson,
Adrian Stokes, and Rudolph Hellwag.
He worked in Chicago as a commercial
artist, and about 1903 returned to California with Wendt and built
a studio in Laguna Beach and became active in western art societies
including the California Art Club. He returned often, but maintained
his primary studio in Brooklyn, New York, and also did a lot of
painting in Colerain, Massachusetts.
Among the collections where his work
can be found is the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences; the
Art Institute of Chicago, and the Fleischer Museum in Scottsdale,
Arizona. Associations he was a member of include the National
Academy of Design, the National Arts Club, the Institute of Arts
and Letters, the Lotos, Century, and Salmagundi Clubs. He was
also a member of the Royal Society of British Artists and the
Union Internationale des Beaux Arts et des Lettres.
He painted entirely out-of-doors, frequently
working in Arizona, doing desert landscape and the Grand Canyon
views, but he is best known for his New England snow scenes, especially
of the Berkshire Mountains. He died in Hillside, New Jersey in
1930.
