Thomas Moran

Thomas Moran (1837–1926) was an English-born American painter, illustrator and printmaker best known for his dramatic landscapes of the American West. Born in Bolton, Lancashire, he moved with his family to the United States as a child and eventually settled in Philadelphia. His early training in wood engraving introduced him to drawing and printmaking before he developed into a landscape painter. Moran was deeply influenced by the British painter J. M. W. Turner, whose use of colour, light and atmosphere became important to his own style. His career changed decisively in 1871 when he joined Ferdinand V. Hayden’s survey of the Yellowstone region. Working alongside photographer William Henry Jackson, Moran produced sketches and watercolours that gave eastern Americans a visual sense of Yellowstone’s enormous landscapes. His images became closely associated with the campaign that led to Yellowstone becoming the first national park in 1872. Moran later travelled through the Grand Canyon, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Mexico and Europe, constantly returning to landscape as his central subject. Although associated with the Hudson River School, his work also developed a distinctive interest in colour, geological drama and the sublime. Today, Moran is remembered both as an important American landscape painter and as an artist whose images helped shape how Americans imagined the western wilderness

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