Ten American Painters Biography

The Ten American Painters, also known as ‘The Ten’, was an independent exhibiting society founded in 1898 by American artists dissatisfied with the exhibition practices of the Society of American Artists. Its members included leading Impressionist and Tonalist painters, whose subjects ranged from outdoor landscapes to portraits and domestic interiors.

The group held its first exhibition at Durand-Ruel Galleries in New York in 1898 and continued exhibiting together for approximately two decades. There were ten members at any one time: when John Henry Twachtman died in 1902, William Merritt Chase joined as his replacement. The list below therefore includes eleven historical participants, not eleven simultaneous members.

Artists and participants

Original members (1898)

• Frank Weston Benson (1862–1951)
• Joseph DeCamp (1858–1923)
• Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1851–1938)
• Childe Hassam (1859–1935)
• Willard Metcalf (1858–1925)
• Robert Reid (1862–1929)
• Edward Emerson Simmons (1852–1931)
• Edmund Tarbell (1862–1938)
• John Henry Twachtman (1853–1902)
• J. Alden Weir (1852–1919)

Later member

• William Merritt Chase (1849–1916)