Painter. Thomas Wilmer Dewing, an American Impressionist painter, was a member of a group called the Ten American Painters, which was shortened to "The Ten." Protesting the limitations on an artist's ability, "The Ten" had seceded from the Society of American Artists and exhibited together for the next twenty years. He became known for his delicate paintings of beautiful, aristocratic women. He used the media of oil-on-canvas, watercolors, pastels, and silverpoints. In July of 1876, he went to Europe, entering studies at the Académie Julian in Paris. After studying art in Paris, he returned to the United States to teach at the newly-opened Art School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Within a short time, he realized that he needed to relocate to New York City to establish himself as an artist. He soon came into contact with many of the young artists who had formed the Society of American Artists out of dissatisfaction with the National Academy of Design. Dewing was elected a member of the Society in 1880 and in 1881 began teaching at the Art Students League. On April 18, 1881 he married Maria Richards Oakley, a talented recognized artist, yet at the time, he was not a well-established artist. The couple had a son, who died as an infant, and a daughter. From 1885 to 1905, the couple spent the summer in their home, the "Doveridge," at an artists' colony in Cornish, New Hampshire. Besides painting, they enjoyed flower gardening. Leaving the colony in 1905 the couple purchased a large plot of land in the White Mountains for a summer residence. His wife collaborated with his paintings by completing floral settings as the background for his portraits, yet only the 1886 painting the "Hymen," which is exhibited at the Cincinnati Art Museum in Ohio, credits both of the artists. He received a silver medal at the 1886 Paris Exposition. His 1887 painting, the "Woman in Black," has his wife as a model with her standing full-view in a black formal gown with her back to the artist and looking over her right shoulder. In May of 2000, "Woman in Black" was sold at Christie's Auction House for $314,000. In 1887, he was elected to the National Academy of Design in New York, and he became a teacher there. From October of 1894 until July of the following year, Dewing sojourned abroad for the last time, meeting Whistler in London and intermittently worked alongside him for several months, before traveling to France. From 1891, American industrialist and art collector, Charles Lang Freer collected his paintings. He was hired to serve as buying agent for Freer's growing collection, which in the 21st century is located in the Freer Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. In December of 1897, he resigned from the Society of American Artists and joined a group of Boston and New York painters in forming "The Ten." Most of the painters in this group were Impressionists, but he enjoyed their company, continuing to paint in a more subdued technique, receiving awards and having a patronage of such noted collectors until he stopped painting with a decline in health, a decade before his death. The first comprehensive exhibition of Dewing's work was held at The Brooklyn Museum March 22 through June 9, 1996, which contained 70 pieces in various media. Later, the exhibition traveled to the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D. C. from July 19 to October 24 and to the Detroit Institute of Arts from November 9, 1996 to January 19, 1997.