Frank Duveneck (October 9, 1848 - January 3, 1919) was an American figure and portrait painter. Frank Duveneck was born in Covington, Kentucky, the son of German immigrant Bernard Decker. Decker died when Frank was only a year old and his widow remarried Joseph Duveneck. By the age of fifteen Frank had begun the study of art under the tutelage of a local painter, Johann Schmitt and had been apprenticed to a German firm of church decorators.
While having grown up in Covington, Duveneck was a part of the German community in Cincinnati, Ohio, just across the Ohio River.
![Girl with Rake Frank Duveneck](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0OwpzAA0q4NsAvltEMsQogYwQ8pgWKZulwVZi5E3SMmnXh7kM9qttF8hCjpME4xpv7lDAXTShfoD1GnR2NlzJRP2o3GJKM3g-y4yKT452DykluL8ZoFisPXsw_DYZefJ9vMIXpnS12CMZ/s200/Frank+Duveneckse.jpg)
He subsequently became one of the young American painters-others were William Merritt Chase, John Henry Twachtman, and Walter Shirlaw-who in the 1870s overturned the traditions of the Hudson River School and started a new art movement characterized by a greater freedom of paint application.