Eric Baumgartner graduated in 1979 from Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude, and with Honors in the History of Art. His senior honors thesis examined the luminist paintings of John Frederick Kensett, and today, Eric’s specialty continues to be 19th-century American art, particularly landscape paintings of the Hudson River School and Neo-Classical sculpture.
Eric joined Hirschl & Adler in 1993, was appointed Director of its Department of American Art in 1994, and became Senior Vice President in 2006. He has lectured on topics of American art, notably at the Orlando Museum of Art and Historic Charleston Foundation. Eric has curated many special gallery exhibitions, including Our Own Bright Land: American Topographical Pictures, 1770–1930 (1994–95); A Marvelous Repose: American Neo-Classical Sculpture, 1825–1876 (1996–97); The American Vasari: William Dunlap and His World (1998–99); Likenesses & Landskips: A Portrait of the Eighteenth Century (2002–03); Charles De Wolf Brownell: A Decade of Travel, 1856–66 (2004); Just Plain Folk (2006); American Masterworks of the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute: Celebrating an Educational Alliance with Pratt Institute (2006); Modeling Grace: Two Centuries of American Sculpture (2009–10); An Architect's Dream: The Magic Realist World of Thomas Fransioli (2015); and Everett Gee Jackson (1900–1995): Modernism without Apologies (2016).
Recently, Eric's interest in American Magic Realism has led Hirschl & Adler to become one of the most active dealers in this fascinating and eminently collectible period.