William Trost Richards (November 14, 1833 – November 8, 1905) was an American landscape artist.

Early life and education

Richards was born on November 14, 1833, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In 1862, he was elected honorary member of the National Academy of Design and was elected as an Academician in 1871. In 1863, he became a member of the Association for the Advancement of Truth in Art. In 1866, he departed for Europe for one year. Upon his return and for the following six years, he spent the summers on the East Coast.

In the 1870s, he produced many acclaimed watercolor views of the White Mountains, several of which are now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Richards exhibited at the National Academy of Design from 1861 to 1899, and at the Brooklyn Art Association from 1863 to 1885. He was elected a full member of the National Academy in 1871.

In 1881, he built a house in Jamestown, Rhode Island, where he lived and worked for the remainder of his life. During this period, he also spent some time working in Matunuck, Rhode Island. He died on April 17, 1905, in Newport, Rhode Island.

Style

Richards rejected the romanticized and stylized approach of other Hudson River painters and instead insisted on meticulous factual renderings. His views of the White Mountains are almost photographic in their realism. In later years, Richards painted almost exclusively marine watercolors.

His works are featured today in many important American museums, including the National Gallery, the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Yale University Art Gallery, the High Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Fogg Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Berkshire Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

His daughter Anna Richards Brewster also became a painter.

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File:William Trost Richards - Seascape with Distant Lighthouse, Atlantic City, New Jersey (1873).jpg|Seascape with Distant Lighthouse, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1873, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

File:Brooklyn Museum - The League Long Breakers Thundering on the Reef - William Trost Richards.jpg|The League Long Breakers Thundering on the Reef, 1887, Brooklyn Museum

File:Brooklyn Museum - Early Summer - William Trost Richards - overall.jpg|Early Summer, 1888, Brooklyn Museum

File:William Trost Richards - The Rainbow (1890).jpg|The Rainbow, 1890, Minnesota Marine Art Museum

File:From the Flume House, Franconia, New Hampshire MET ap80.1.12.jpg|From the Flume House, Franconia, New Hampshire, 1872, Metropolitan Museum of Art

File:Franconia Notch, New Hampshire MET ap80.1.5.jpg|Franconia Notch, New Hampshire, 1872, Metropolitan Museum of Art

File:Mount Chocorua and Lake MET ap80.1.7.jpg|Mount Chocorua and Lake, 1873, Metropolitan Museum of Art

File:William Trost Richards, Nantucket Shore.jpg|Nantucket Shore, 1865, Nantucket Historical Association

File:William Trost Richards - Marine (1884).jpg|Marine, 1884, Portland Art Museum

</gallery>

References

Further reading

  • Ferber, Linda S., In search of a national landscape : William Trost Richards and the artists' Adirondacks, 1850-1870, Blue Mountain Lake, N.Y., Adirondack Museum, 2002.
  • Ferber, Linda S., Never at fault, the drawings of William Trost Richards, Yonkers, N.Y., Hudson River Museum, 1986.
  • William Trost Richards Papers at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art
  • William Trost Richards exhibition catalogs
  • William Trost Richards collection at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
  • American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Richards (see index)