Thomas Moran

(1837-1926)

Thomas Moran was born in Bolton, England. As a teenager he was an apprentice at the Philadelphia engraving firm of Scattergood and Telfer.

After three years, he left and started work in the studio of his brother, Edward, who was a marine painter. Moran benefited not only from his brother but from the esteemed Philadelphia painter, James Hamilton.

Moran and Edward journeyed to London where they spent several months studying.

Upon return to the states, in 1871, Moran went to Yellowstone where he marked the turning point of his career. Many paintings and commissions resulted from the journey to the American West. The sale of his "Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone" to Congress shortly after passage of the National Park Act brought much attention to Moran.

Moran joined John Wesley Powell's expedition down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. On returning, he worked on a second canvas. "Chasm of the Colorado" that became the second of Moran's western landscapes to hang in the Capitol.

Moran continued traveling, visiting the Grand Canyon, Arizona and New Mexico producing a number of works. He has been memorialized as the "Dean of American Landscape Painters," Moran died in August 1926 in Santa Barbara, California.