The Ten American Painters (also known as The Ten) was an artists' group formed in 1898 to exhibit their work as a unified group.
John Henry Twachtman, J. Alden Weir and Childe Hassam were the driving forces behind the organization. Dissatisfied with the conservatism of the American art establishment, the three artists recruited seven others from Boston, New York City, and elsewhere on the East Coast, with the intention of creating an exhibition society that valued their view of originality, imagination, and exhibition quality.
The Ten achieved popular and critical success, and lasted two decades before dissolving.
Foundation
In America, popular painting styles usually originated on the east coast in cities like New York and Boston.
The Ten continued a tradition of artists forming new groups in reaction to a lack of support from existing artists' groups. Thus, the National Academy of Design (founded in 1825 by students dissatisfied by the conservatism of the older American Academy of the Fine Arts) eventually became too conservative to suit the artists who in 1877 initiated the Society of American Artists so they could meet and exhibit their work as a collective.
Frank W. Benson | Summer, 1909
