Thomas Moran (b. 1837, d. 1926)

A pre-eminent painter of the American West, Thomas Moran came to the United States in 1844 from his native England. He settled in Philadelphia, where he studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with his brother, the noted marine painter, Edward Moran. During two journeys to Europe in 1861 and 1866, he was inspired by the art of J.M.W. Turner. In 1871, Moran made his first trip to the West, where he became the official artist for Dr. Ferdinand Hayden’s expedition to the Yellowstone region. He would make many return visits to see the West’s natural wonders in the years that followed. Filling his sketchbooks with records of his travels, he would work in watercolor and oil, transcribing the awe-inspiring qualities of his subject matter. Moran was not exclusively a painter of the West. By 1883, he had begun to create images of the intimate, serene, and accessible landscapes of Eastern Long Island as well as of Mexico.