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DeWitt Clinton Boutelle

Influenced by Thomas Cole and Asher Durand, during this period, he painted in the Hudson River Valley, where his subjects included Niagara Falls and the Catskill Mountains. Boutelle was such an admirer of Cole, leader of the Hudson River School, that to honor him, he did a full-size copy of Cole's painting Voyage of Life.

In 1851, DeWitt Clinton Boutelle was elected an associate of the National Academy of Design where he frequently exhibited. He also exhibited at the American Art Union, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Boston Athenaeum, and the Washington Art Association.

There is no record of him receiving formal art training, although in 1859, he accepted the invitation of Samuel Wetherill, art collector and wealthy industrialist to join a group of landscape specialist painters in Bethelem, Pennsylvania. During this period, he is sometimes listed in Philadelphia with the name Bartelle.

A painting with a western Indian by him was dated 1855, but there is no evidence he was ever in the American West.

In 1855, Boutelle left New York, lived in Philadelphia for two years, and then settled for the remainder of his life in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Sources include:
Peggy and Harold Samuels, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West
Peter Falk, Editor, Who Was Who in American Art