Eliphalet Frazer Andrews


Eliphalet Frazer Andrews, an American painter known primarily as a portraitist, established an art instruction curriculum at the behest of William Wilson Corcoran at his Corcoran School of Art, and served as its director, 1877–1902. He received many commissions to copy images of famous Americans, those copies are displayed by federal, state and local institutions, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Early life

Born in Steubenville, Ohio, to Dr. Alexander Hull and Eliza Ann Andrews, he received early training at Marietta College in Ohio, and further study in the Royal Prussian Academy, Berlin, in the atelier of Ludwig Knaus, at the Düsseldorf Academy and with Leon Bonnat at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris.

Career

Following the election of his friend Rutherford B. Hayes as President Andrews moved to Washington, D.C.
William Wilson Corcoran hired Andrews to establish an art instruction curriculum at his Corcoran School of Art. Andrews served as its director, 1877–1902, and later as the Corcoran Art Gallery until his death. Pupils included Catharine Carter Critcher and Daisy Blanche King.
, based on a head and bust oil sketch from life by Gilbert Stuart, shows anachronistic details of costume and the American Renaissance chair.
Several federal government agencies, mostly through the Architect of the Capitol, Edward Clark, commissioned Andrews to make copies of existing portraits. Thus, several of his portraits, are in The White House collection, including posthumous full-length portraits of Martha Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Johnson. His Poppies and Edge of a Stream are at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Former Kentucky Lieutenant Governor John C. Underwood, President of the United Confederate Veterans, commissioned Andrews to make twenty portraits of prominent Confederates for a proposed Confederate Museum in Richmond, Virginia. The project was embroiled in litigation, and eleven paintings were sold in 1910 for unpaid storage fees by a Covington, Kentucky warehouse. Most ended up in Virginia, but three are in the collection of the Kentucky Museum at Western Kentucky University. The Confederate Memorial Association, led by Virginia lieutenant governor James Taylor Ellyson and financed by Thomas Fortune Ryan did build its headquarters in Richmond, which is now the Virginia Historical Society. Perhaps the most famous paintings therein are the "Four Seasons of the Confederacy" murals by Charles Hoffbauer.

Personal life

In 1895 Andrews married Marietta Fauntleroy Minnigerode. She was the daughter of Charles Ernest Frederick Minnigerode, rector of St. Paul's Church in Richmond, Virginia, and she was active in the Daughters of the Confederacy. E. F. Andrews was a member of the Metropolitan Club in Washington, D.C.

Death and legacy

Andrews died in Washington, D.C. on March 15, 1915, and his remains were returned to Steubenville, Ohio. In 1917, his widow presented his portrait of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest to the Confederate Memorial in Chattanooga, Tennessee.