author

Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

Best known for a classic guide to oil painting, this American artist and teacher wrote with the practical clarity of someone who had learned both in the studio and in the classroom.

1 Audiobook

The Painter in Oil A complete treatise on the principles and technique necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors

The Painter in Oil A complete treatise on the principles and technique necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors

by Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

About the author

Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst was an American painter, teacher, and art writer best known for The Painter in Oil, a detailed manual first published in the late 19th century. The book presents oil painting as a craft that can be studied carefully, and it has remained of interest to artists long after its original publication.

Sources available here describe him as being born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, on December 26, 1859. They also note that he studied with William Sartain and in Paris with leading academic painters including William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Tony Robert-Fleury, and Aimé Morot.

Parkhurst was also active as a lecturer and art educator. Contemporary title-page information for The Painter in Oil identifies him as a member of the New York Water Color Club and as a former lecturer on art at Dickinson College, which helps explain the clear, instructional tone that makes his writing still readable today.