(1837–1926)
Thomas Moran was one of the most important landscape painters of the late nineteenth century and perhaps the most famous chronicler of the American frontier. Moran was born in Bolton, England, and emigrated with his family to America in 1844. They settled in Kensington, Pennsylvania, a large town near Philadelphia. Moran began his artistic career in the mid-1850s. Although he was primarily a self-taught artist, he initially trained under his brother, artist Edward Moran. Thomas was very disciplined and perfected his technique through the study of art books, literature, and paintings by favored artists. In addition to painting in oil and watercolor, Moran was a fine etcher, engraver, and lithographer. His early landscape paintings show his strong interest in the work of English and American Pre-Raphaelites, yet his biggest influence, specifically in regards to color and atmosphere, were paintings by his friend and fellow artist, Joseph Mallord William Turner.
In June of 1866, Moran took a trip to Europe to continue his independent studies. He resided in Paris and made excursions around the countryside, through the French and Italian Alps, and also visited Rome. During this time he exhibited at the Universal Exposition of 1867, one of the largest exhibitions of the decade. Upon his return to the United States, Moran spent the next decade painting and exhibiting majestic landscapes of the American West—specifically of Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, which helped launch his career. These paintings played a key roll in the persuasion of Congress to pass a bill preserving the natural beauty of the region by creating Yellowstone National Park.
By the 1870s Moran had discovered the more intimate beauty of another region of the country: East Hampton, Long Island, which he first visited in 1878. For the next two decades Moran drew inspiration from the surrounding countryside, using its dunes, ponds, beaches, cottages, and marshes as the setting for his paintings.
In 1881 Moran moved to New York where he resided for the next thirty years and continued to take sketching excursions to foreign countries and the southwestern United States. Moran was very well respected by his peers and critics and was elected Associate of the National Academy of Design. He returned west in his later years, where he lived in Santa Barbara, California, and exhibited widely.
Moran’s paintings are housed in many museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, and Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D. C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Newark Museum, New Jersey; Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa; Milwaukee Art Center, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; and in the Capitol Building and the White House, Washington, D. C.