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- Robert Burns Wilson was a painter/poet from Frankfort, Kentucky,
and, later, Brooklyn, New York.
There are few, if any, painters who can say they rallied a
country to war, but Wilson could. As a poet he wrote "Remember
the Maine," which helped carry the nation into the Spanish-American
War.
Wilson was a Pennsylvania native; he studied art in Pittsburgh,
where he was a studio mate of John White Alexander. He came to
Kentucky in 1871. He worked in Louisville but in 1875 moved to
Frankfort, where portrait commissions awaited. He lived in Frankfort
for close to 30 years, painting throughout the Bluegrass region.
He began painting landscapes in the 1880s.
In 1904 he moved to New York and remained in the East until
his death.
When art historians write about the great painters of Kentucky
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Wilson shares the
page with Paul Sawyier, Carl Brenner, Harvey Joiner and Frank
English.
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