BEST AMERICAN ART by Alexandra Jopp

Pennsylvania Landscape. Painter of Pennsylvania landscapes and marine subjects of New Jersey By Alexandra A Jopp Influenced early in his career by the Hudson River School and Luminist preferences, Frederick DeBourg Richards specialized in landscape and maritime scene. By the middle of the 19th century, he ranked among the most accomplished artists practicing realism in the United States. Over time, his brushwork became somewhat more painterly, however he never abandoned his dedication to meticulously accurate observation. Frederick DeBourg Richards was born on June 24, 1822, in Wilmington, Del. He lived in New York in the 1840s before moving to Philadelphia in 1848, where he spent most of his remaining years with his wife and two daughters. Richards considered himself mostly self-taught as a painter, and he achieved success as a landscape artist by exhibiting his paintings at the American Art-Union, an exclusive association in New York City where the finest American ...

Stage Fort across Gloucester Harbor , 1862 Fitz Henry Lane. Painting in the English and Dutch seascape tradition, Lane became one of America’s most admired marine painters, a skillful lithographer and the founding father of ‘Luminism.’ By Alexandra A. Jopp Fitz Hugh Lane (also known as Fitz Henry Lane),   a founding figure of “Luminism,” was born Nathaniel Rogers Lane in Gloucester, Mass., on Dec. 19, 1804. A child prodigy, Lane would grow up to become one of the premier American artists of the nineteenth century, with works on display in 27 museums and the White House. His art retains a high status among collectors, and in 2004, his Manchester Harbor (1853) sold for $5.5 million at an auction in Boston. Fitz Hugh Lane (1804-1865), Brace's Rock, Eastern Point, Gloucester, c. 1864, oil on canvas, John Wilmderding Collection. This posthumous prosperity, though, is in stark contrast to Lane’s difficult childhood. His oldest brother, Steven, died in 1815, a yea...