Thomas Moran was a British-born American painter who represented the Hudson River School. He produced the landscapes depicting the beauty of the American West’s nature, including the Rocky Mountains.
Among other subjects of his canvases were literary, marine, European and Mexican topics.
Background
Thomas Moran was born on February 12, 1837, in Bolton, Lancashire, United Kingdom. He was a son of Thomas Moran Sr. and Mary Higson. Moran’s father worked a master weaver on textile mills in Lancashire.
When Thomas was six years old, his father went to America with the intention to provide a better life for his children. A year later, Mary with children joined her husband and the family settled in a place in Philadelphia named Kensington.
Three of Thomas Moran’s brothers, Edward, Peter and John, also were painters.
Education
Thomas Moran received his general education at various public schools in Philadelphia. While studying, he revealed his passion for art.
To pursue his studies in the field, he became an apprentice at the local wood-engraving firm Scattergood & Telfer. The process seemed to a young man boring and after three years Thomas left the firm and started to learn the techniques of drawing and painting from his elder brother, a marine painter Edward.
Later, Thomas Moran was tutored by another painter James Hamilton who introduced his pupil to the art of an English artist Joseph Mallord William Turner.
In 1861, Thomas and Edward visited London where they had a possibility to develop their skills doing replicas right from the original canvases by Turner at the National Gallery. While in the city, Thomas briefly studied at the Royal Academy of Arts.
The start of Thomas Moran’s career can be counted from his debut solo exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1856 where he presented to the public his watercolors. The following year, he began his long collaboration with the National Academy of Design where he would exhibit regularly till 1922.
In the 1850s, like many artists of this time, Moran adopted the principles of the Hudson River School and started to travel around the country during summers seeking for rural scenes for his landscapes. He spent winters working in the studio. The first oil painting he produced came in 1856 and was titled ‘Among the Ruins There He Lingered’.
At the beginning of the next decade, Thomas Moran joined his elder brother on his trip to London where they spent one year. Later this time, Moran traveled to Europe visiting Italy and Paris where he got acquainted with Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. In 1867, Moran demonstrated one of his first major works, ‘Children of the Mountain’, at the Universal Exposition in Paris.
Four years later, the artist accepted the invitation from the director of the United States Geological Survey, Dr. Ferdinand Hayden, to join his team on the expedition to the Yellowstone region. During forty days in the region, Moran sketched about thirty various areas. In 1873, the artist accompanied John Powell on the government survey on the Grand Canyon and the following year participated at another Hayden’s expedition, this time to the Mountain of Holy Cross in Eagle County, Colorado. All these trips provided Maron with a huge number of sketches which served as a base for such famous paintings as ‘Mountain of the Holy Cross’, ‘Chasm of the Colorado’ and ‘The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone’. Both latter were bought by the government. In 1876, the artist participated at the Centennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia.
Thomas Maron pursued his artistic traveling during the subsequent decades. In addition, he applied the knowledge of wood-engraving, etching, and lithography he had received from his brothers. He designed wood-engraved illustrations which were often used in notable periodicals of the time, for example, Scribner's Monthly Magazine. Some of these works were presented at the New York Etching Club which he joined.
During the last period of his life, Thomas Maron took part at the exhibitions organized in the Art Institute of Chicago and at the American Art Society in Philadelphia (1902).
First Sketch Made in the West at Green River, Wyoming
Mosquito Trail, Rocky Mountains, Colorado
An Arizona Sunset Near the Grand Canyon
Green River, Wyoming
The Chasm of the Colorado
Crystal Falls
Forest Scene
Winter in the Rockies
The Wilds of Lake Superior
Autumn on the Wissahickon
Salvator Rosa Sketching the Banditi
Dusk Wings
Membership
National Academy of Design
,
United States
1884
New York Etching Club
,
United States
1880
Art Club of Philadelphia
,
United States
American Watercolor Society
,
United States
Pennsylvania Academy of Arts
,
United States
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
"Moran's expression has passed into our very culture. Perhaps more than any other American painter of the latter half of the nineteenth century, Thomas Moran compelled the American people to appreciate the beauty of its own continent, to look upon its wonders through his eyes, and to save these resources of natural beauty." Robert Allerton Parker, a biographer
Interests
Artists
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Connections
Thomas Moran married a landscapist and etcher from Scotland Mary Nimmo Moran in 1862. The family produced three children named Paul Nimmo, Mistress Wirt Tassin and Ruth B.
Thomas Moran and the Surveying of the American West
The book studies Thomas Moran's early western landscapes and describes how the artist created three monumental paintings – The Grand Cañon of the Yellowstone, The Chasm of the Colorado, and The Mountain of the Holy Cross
1992
Thomas Moran. The Field Sketches, 1856-1923
This illustrated catalog of the artist’s field sketches includes an interpretive essay tracing the his seventy-year career in the field; a chronological, stylistic, and geographical survey of his fieldwork; an illustrated checklist of the 1080 sketches in public collections
1996
Thomas Moran: Artist of the Mountains
This is an extensively revised edition of Thomas Moran’s biography – well illustrated in color and black-and-white – draws on new information and recent scholarship
1998
Thomas Moran: Yellowstone Man
The book contains the artist’s biography and 300 reproductions of United States National Parks including, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, The Tetons accompanied by annotations
2014
Thomas Moran: 121 Masterpieces
The book by Maria Tsaneva with foreword and annotated reproductions contains 121 selected watercolors and paintings of Thomas Moran