Tyson lived in Chestnut Hill, but spent summers on the Somes Sound in Mount Desert Island, Maine. The unique combination of warmth and crisp atmosphere of summertime in Maine is expressed in the artist’s cool palette of blues and greens with staccato touches of orange and red. Energetic clouds move across the sky and cast shadows on the mountains.
Tyson studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) and exhibited at the Wildenstein Gallery and the Durand-Ruel Gallery, leading venues for French Impressionism. Mary Cassatt befriended and encouraged the younger Tyson and helped him gain access to important private art collections, including that of her friend, Louisine W. Havemeyer. Together with an impressive exhibition record, Tyson is remembered as a great art collector: he donated his extraordinary holdings of paintings by Édouard Manet, Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and Vincent van Gogh (including Sunflowers) to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
