Artist/Dean, Yale School of Art
Centurion, 1864–1926
Born 28 August 1841 in West Point, New York
Died 26 April 1926 in Providence, Rhode Island
Buried Grove Street Cemetery
, New Haven, Connecticut
Proposed by Sanford R. Gifford and Eastman Johnson
Elected 3 December 1864 at age twenty-three
Archivist’s Note: Brother of Robert F. Weir; half-brother of Julian Alden Weir; brother-in-law of Thomas Lincoln Casey; uncle of Edward P. Casey and Thomas Lincoln Casey
Seconder of:
Century Memorial
In the Century, John Ferguson Weir bore the honorable distinction of oldest member. Admitted to the Club in 1864, he antedated such comparative juveniles as Mr. Henry Holt and Major Putnam by four and eight years respectively. He served with the Seventh Regiment at the defense of Washington when the Civil War began; in his career as painter he was one of the nowadays almost mythical “Hudson River school.” His own work was of wide imaginative scope, ranging from portraits and flower studies to such notably original pictures as the “Gun Foundry” and the “Forging of the Shaft.” Nearly all of this time he was teacher as well as practitioner of art; his incumbency as Dean of the Yale School of Fine Arts lasted from 1869 to 1913; an exceptionally long term of service in a single post, even for the days of life tenure in collegiate instruction.
Alexander Dana Noyes
1927 Century Association Yearbook
