Thomas Cole

Thomas Cole (1 February 1801 – 11 February 1848) was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history paintings. Influenced by European painters, but with a strong American sensibility, he was prolific throughout his career and worked primarily with oil on canvas. His paintings are typically allegoric and often depict small figures or structures set against moody and evocative natural landscapes. They are usually escapist, framing the New World as a natural eden contrasting with the smog-filled cityscapes of Industrial Revolution-era Britain, in which he grew up. His works, often seen as conservative, criticize the contemporary trends of industrialism, urbanism, and westward expansion. Early life and education Born in Bolton le Moors, Lancashire, in 1801, Cole immigrated with his family to the United States in 1818, settling in Steubenville, Ohio. At the age of 22, he moved to Philadelphia and later, in 1825, to Catskill, New York, where he lived with his wife and children until his death in 1848. Cole found work early on as an engraver. He was largely self-taught as a painter, relying on books and by studying the work of other artists. In 1822, he started working as a portrait painter and later on, gradually shifted his focus to landscape. Painting