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Charles C. Coleman

American, 1840-1928

BiographyWidely acclaimed in America and abroad for his renderings of the landscape and monuments of Italy, the expatriate artist Charles Caryl Coleman spent the majority of his career on the island of Capri.

A native of Buffalo, New York, Coleman received his earliest art instruction from a local painter, William H. Beard, during the late 1850s. In 1859 he travelled to Paris, where he studied under Thomas Couture. A year later he settled in Florence, eventually meeting the artist Elihu Vedder, who became his lifelong friend. Coleman returned to America in 1862, serving in the Union forces during the Civil War. However he was honorably discharged in 1863 after receiving an accidental wound from a fellow officer.

In 1880 Coleman bought a villa on the island of Capri, moving there permanently in 1884. He subsequently became an influential member of the colony of American artists on the island. Working in an academic realist style, Coleman painted such subjects as Greek and Roman statuary, architectural monuments, local peasants and the gardens and arbors that surrounded his home, "Villa Narcissus". He also produced many views of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, recording its varied effects on the light and atmosphere of the region and on the waters of the Bay of Naples.

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