Submitting Artist Biographies

Submitting Artist Biographies

TFAO's website is the world's most visited site devoted to American art. TFAO is constantly adding entries, or upgrading them, in Distinguished Artists, a national registry of historic artists and publishing related biographies in TFAO's Resource Library.

TFAO welcomes submissions of biographies of deceased American artisans, illustrators, muralists, plein air and studio painters, photographers, printmakers and sculptors whose works have been exhibited in American art museums. Artisans include persons engaged in ceramics, glass, jewels, metal, mosaic, paper, pottery, stone, textile art and woodworking. Biographies must include the names of museums and dates of exhibition in which the artist's works were shown.

Please submit a biography of at least 600 words. Texts with fewer than 600 words will not be considered for publication.

Names and address of copyright owners must accompany each biography so that owners may be reached directly by readers. Please state your name and address in the way you wish this information published. Your published address may be an email address or a postal address.

So that readers may become acquainted with the author of the biography, TFAO welcomes you to send a brief biography of the author (who may be yourself) to accompany the artist biography. Published authors are named and their biographies provided whenever possible so that readers may gauge the quality of the texts.

Only owners who hold the sole copyright to biographies may submit texts to TFAO. Please accompany each biography submission with a statement saying that you are the sole copyright owner of the biography and that you authorize TFAO to publish it online.

Please send the biography, owner name and address, and authorization to publish by email either utilizing a Word [.doc] attachment or by use of the "copy and paste" method in the e-mail message to:

Please do not send zip files. Also, please do not send images of art works.

Upon receipt of each artist biography, TFAO judges its value for inclusion in Distinguished Artists and publication in TFAO's Resource Library. To learn more on how TFAO chooses Distinguished Artists entries, please click here.

Benefits to public and owner

TFAO, as a non-profit charitable organization, provides a channel for free public online access on a perpetual basis yet allows copyright holders undiminished rights to realize the economic value of their intellectual property during the period of copyright protection and beyond. For more information on benefits to the public and copyright holders please click here.

Protection of copyright

Approval is given by the owner of a text for one-time republishing -- with no dilution of the owner's copyright.

Biography examples

Distinguished Artists cites hundreds of biographies published in TFAO's Resource Library. Here are examples:

Albert Bierstadt

Karl Bodmer

Augustus W. Dunbier (images were included because photos of the paintings shown and the paintings themselves were owned by the authors at time of publication)

Sam Hyde Harris

Martin Johnson Heade

Albert Henry Krehbiel

John Marin

William Aiken Walker