Cropsey, Jasper Francis

Jasper Francis Cropsey was born in 1823 on a farm in Staten Island, NY. He began his artistic career at age 14 as an apprentice to architect Joseph Trench who encouraged Cropsey’s interest in art by providing him with paint, canvas, and space to work. He exhibited his first public work, Italian Composition, in 1843 at the National Academy of Design in Manhattan. This early landscape revealed an interest in nature that Cropsey pursued for the rest of his career.

He continued his training in Britain and Rome, and returned to the United States in 1849, when he established a studio in New York City. Here he had easy access to the mountains upstate and in New England, and traveled during the summer for artistic inspiration. During a long and successful career, Cropsey became known for realistic and meticulously composed landscapes brimming with lively figures, detailed architectural elements, animals and other features that distinguished his work from his fellow Hudson River School artists.