John Ross Key

I. Biography

John Ross Key, grandson of Francis Scott Key—songwriter of “The Star-Spangled Banner”—was born in Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1832. His father, John Ross Key, died before his birth, so Key grew up with his mother, Virginia Ringgold Key, and grandparents in their home on the Potomac River.¹ Largely self-taught, with brief studies in Munich and Paris, Key began work as a topographical artist for the United States Coast Survey in the 1850s. There, he befriended James McNeill Whistler, a fellow employee and artist, who drew a portrait of Key in 1854 (Freer Gallery of Art Collection, Washington, D.C.). In 1859, he served as a cartographer on the Lander Expedition, charting trails through Nevada and Wyoming for the California Trail.

Key served in the Civil War and, from 1863 to 1865, worked as an officer in the Corps of Engineers. He was stationed in Charleston, South Carolina, producing meticulous maps and dramatic battle scenes, including Bombardment of Fort Sumter, Siege of Charleston Harbor, 1863—a work frequently exhibited due to its misattribution to Albert Bierstadt.² Like his grandfather, who wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner” while witnessing the British bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812, Key documented the Siege of Charleston and Fort Sumter with paint and canvas.

After the war, Key worked as a painter in Baltimore, Boston, New York, and San Francisco. On the West Coast, he traveled extensively, painting the Sierra Nevadas, Point Lobos, the Golden Gate, Lake Tahoe, and Yosemite. Around 1873, Key traveled to Europe to study art in Munich and Paris, where he met and married Mabel Thayer, a Boston native living in England.³ In 1876, he won a medal for The Golden Gate, San Francisco, at the U.S. Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia for artistic excellence in landscape.⁴ While living in Boston, Key established a studio, exhibited at the Boston Art Club and Leonard Auction Rooms, and in 1877 showed over 100 paintings in a one-man show at the Boston Athenaeum.⁵ While in Massachusetts, Key taught high school to augment his income while also showing his work at Boston galleries.

After receiving praise and commissions from wealthy patrons in Chicago, Key decided to move there. In addition to painting, he expanded his reach into decorating and completed commissions for private homes in the Chicago area. In 1893, Key was commissioned to complete portraits of the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.⁶ He continued creating portraits for later expositions across America.

In 1898, after the death of his first wife, Key worked as art director for the Greater America Exposition in Omaha. There, he met Ellenore Dutcher, a Chicagoan and member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Key’s portraits of the various American expositions were exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in 1900 and at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901. The following year, Key and Dutcher married in Chicago and relocated to his family home in Washington, D.C., in 1904.⁷ Key largely painted landscapes of the East Coast during this time. In 1918, Key moved back to Maryland, and he passed away due to a heart attack two years later in 1920.

Key regularly exhibited at the National Academy of Design, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Boston Athenaeum, and the Boston Art Club throughout the 1860s and 1870s. He was a member of the Society of Washington Artists and the Boston Art Club. The artist’s works are now held by the White House Historical Association, the Maryland Historical Society, the University of Michigan Art Museum, and the Morris Museum of Art, among other institutions.

II. Chronology

• 1832 Born in Hagerstown, Maryland
• 1853–56 Serves as a draftsman with the U.S. Coast Survey; meets James Abbott McNeill Whistler
• 1863 Works in the Corps of Engineers in Charleston, South Carolina
• 1869–72 Moves to San Francisco; travels around the West for scenes to paint
• 1873 Travels to study art in Europe; marries Mabel Thayer
• 1876 Wins a medal for The Golden Gate, San Francisco, at the U.S. Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia
• 1877 Exhibits over 100 works in a one-man show at the Boston Athenaeum
• 1878 Moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts
• 1883 Moves to Chicago, Illinois
• 1893 Creates portraits of the World’s Columbian Exposition
• 1897 His wife, Mabel Thayer Key, dies⁸
• 1900 Exhibits portraits of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Europe
• 1902 Marries Ellenore Dutcher
• 1904 Moves to Washington, D.C.⁹
• 1918–1920 Moves back to Baltimore, Maryland
• 1920 Dies in Baltimore, Maryland¹⁰

III. Collections

• Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
• Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
• Biggs Museum of American Art, Denver, Colorado
• Greenville Museum of Art, Greenville, South Carolina
• The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina
• Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, Maryland
• Morris Museum of Art, Morris Township, New Jersey
• Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California
• University of Michigan Art Museum, Ann Arbor, Michigan
• Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, Maryland
• White House Historical Association, Washington, D.C.

IV. Exhibitions

• 1866–8, 1878–9 National Academy of Design, New York, New York
• 1867 Pennsylvania Academy of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• 1870 Mechanics’ Institute, San Francisco, California
• 1875–78 Boston Art Club, Boston, Massachusetts
• 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, Pennsylvania, gold medal for The Golden Gate, San Francisco
• 1877 Boston Athenaeum, Boston, Massachusetts, solo exhibition
• 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, Illinois
• 1899 Greater America Exposition, Omaha, Nebraska
• 1900 Exposition Universelle, Paris, France
• 1901 Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, New York
• 1908, 1915 Corcoran Galleries, Washington, D.C., solo exhibitions
• 1910 “Paintings by John Ross Key,” Bendann’s Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland¹¹
• 1917 Society of Independent Artists, Grand Central Palace, New York City
• 1927 National Collection of Fine Arts (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum) in the National History Building (now the National Museum of Natural History), Washington, D.C.¹²

V. Notes

1. “John Ross Key,” Hirsch and Adler, https://www.hirschlandadler.com/galleries/john-ross-key.
2. Alfred C. Harrison, Jr., “Bierstadt’s Bombardment of Fort Sumter Reattributed,” The Magazine Antiques CXXIX, February 1986, pp. 416–22.
3. “Marriages,” The Boston Globe, July 31, 1873.
4. Kimberly Orcutt, Power and Posterity: American Art at Philadelphia’s 1876 Centennial Exhibition (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018), 219.
5. Catherine H. Campbell, New Hampshire Scenery: A Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Artists of New Hampshire Mountain Landscapes (Phoenix Publishing, 1985), 106.
6. “Will Show Four New Views. John R. Key to Exhibit His Paintings of the Fair,” Chicago Inter-Ocean, January 29, 1898.
7. “Ellenore Dutcher Weds. Becomes the Wife of John Ross Key, the Artist,” Omaha World-Herald, February 2, 1902.
8. “Mabel Thayer Key,” Chicago Tribune, February 15, 1897.
9. “John Ross Key,” Hirsch and Adler, https://www.hirschlandadler.com/galleries/john-ross-key.
10. “Key’s Grandson Dies, Burial in Mt. Olivet,” Frederick Post, March 26, 1920.
11. “Baltimore,” American Art News 8, no. 19 (February 19, 1910): 2.
12. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 311, Box 27, Folder 8.

VI. Suggested Resources

• Falk, Peter. Who Was Who in American Art. Vol. 2, Sound View Press, 1999, pp. 1834–35.
• Haugh, Chris. “A Star-Spangled Artist.” Mount Olivet Cemetery, July 12, 2019, http://www.mountolivethistory.com/stories-in-stone-blog/a-star-spangled-artist.