Charles T. Webber

Charles T. Webber began drawing and painting as a child, using a woodshed attic for a studio. He had one teacher, and apparently never studied at an art school. By 1855 he was painting portraits and teaching in Springfield, Ohio. Webber found employment in 1858 tinting photographs in Cincinnati, and soon afterwards he and two artists opened the Artists’ Photographic and Picture Gallery. When the Civil War broke out, he moved into his own studio where he continued to paint portraits, but also started creating mythological and historical works. Webber became well known in the community, persuading the organizers of the first Cincinnati Industrial Exposition of 1870 to exhibit his art, which won him a silver medal.