Jasper Francis Cropsey

1823-1900

Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823–1900) grew up on a Staten Island farm and first trained as an architect, studying under Joseph Trench while also learning watercolor and taking life-drawing classes at the National Academy of Design. By the mid-1840s he had abandoned architecture for landscape painting, becoming a leading figure of the Hudson River School's first generation. Extended stays in Europe, including seven years based in London from 1856, brought his work to the Royal Academy and international exhibitions, while at home he built a reputation for brilliantly colored, idealized autumn scenes of the American countryside that he saw as expressions of both nature's grandeur and national character. He co-founded the American Society of Painters in Water Colors in 1866 and continued designing buildings, including elevated railway stations in New York. Cropsey died largely forgotten at his Hastings-on-Hudson home, Ever Rest, but was rediscovered by collectors decades later; his paintings now hang in major museums across the United States and Europe.