George Eyster Senseney

American 1874-1943

Like so many of his peers, George Eyster Senseney was compelled to study art with the masters in Paris at the Academie Julien, exhibiting his work in the Paris Salon by 1901. Upon his return, Senseney soon stood apart—as the first artist to make coloured etchings in America.

Senseney’s coloured etchings were first exhibited at the Keppel Galleries in new York in 1908. Mixing his own inks and applying to a soft ground plate, Senseney’s etchings were considered unique, though artists in Europe had been practicing the technique for some five or six years.

After teaching etching at the Art Student League in New York, Senseney returned for a time to France where he was elected a member of the “Societe’ des Graveurs Original en Couleurs” (only two foreign members were allowed) and became president of the “Societe’ des Artists de Picardee.”

Back in America, Senseney was a silver medalist at the Panama Pacific Exposition in 1915, and was elected president of the Art Institute of Chicago/Society of Etchers. In 1919, Senseney’s woodblock prints were featured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the fall of 1921, his etchings were displayed in Washington DC at Concoran College of Art and Design’s Colour Etching Exhibition. A show at the Art Institute of Chicago followed in the spring of 1922.

George Eyster Senseney’s work can still be found in public collections throughout North America and Europe, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.