ROBERT SWAIN GIFFORD

Landscape and marine painter, etcher, teacher, and illustrator Robert Swain Gifford was born in Massachusetts in 1840. He studied in New Bedford with Albert Van Beest and Benjamin Russell in the late 1850s. He opened a studio in Boston in 1864, but was living in New York City by 1866. During the 1860s and 1870s, he made extended sketching tours of the western United States and Europe. He also traveled to North Africa and became noted for his pictures of Oriental life. He became an associate of the National Academy in 1867 and a member in 1878. In 1876, he won a gold medal the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, establishing himself as one of the premier American landscape painters. From 1877 through the 1880s, he was also one of the most famous American etchers. He held a teaching position at the Cooper Union Art School from 1866 to 1896. He died in 1905.