Thomas Bangs Thorpe

American, 1815–1878

The son of a minister, born in Westfield, Massachusetts, Thorpe studied painting with the eccentric artist John Quidor (1801–1881) in Boston before attending Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, in 1833. Owing to health problems, and with the encouragement of Southern friends, Thorpe moved to New Orleans in 1836. As with many artists of his generation, he was peripatetic, spending time in Natchez, Baton Rouge, and Montgomery. Thorpe concentrated on portraits but was among the first in Louisiana to paint large numbers of genre, still life, and landscape paintings.

During the 1840s, Thorpe focused on writing humorous stories for Spirit of the Times, Harper's Weekly, and other periodicals. Two of his stories, "The Big Bear of Arkansas" and "Tom Owen, the Bee-Hunter," influenced Mark Twain and William Faulkner, among others. Thorpe edited the Baton Rouge Gazette through the mid-1850s He returned to Louisiana as an officer in the Union Army under General Benjamin Butler during the occupation.

Thorpe seems to have been rather dishonest and was charged with embezzling funds from the customs houses in New Orleans and New York. A staunch abolitionist, he was counted among the leading defenders of the Whig cause in the 1850s. Thorpe continued painting through the 1870s.