Thomas Wilmer Dewing was born in Boston in 1851 and studied at the Academie Julian in Paris, later helping found the Ten American Painters. He spent summers at the Cornish colony with his wife Maria Oakey Dewing and taught at the Art Students League; his life was quiet, private and steady.
His paintings are soft, tonal portraits of elegant women and hushed interiors, with muted color and careful textures that feel distant but intimate. Museums like the Freer hold his work, which still reads as calm, refined and a little melancholy.
