William Trost Richards

Best known for landscape and marine paintings, Richards was born in Philadelphia and attended Central High School there. In the 1850s he studied with German artist Paul Weber. His first public showing was in an exhibition organized by Albert Bierstadt in 1858, and by 1865 he was a regular exhibitor at the National Academy of Design and the Brooklyn Museum. In 1863, he became a member of the Association of the Advanced of Truth in Art, an American Pre-Raphaelite group. His paintings reflect a devotion to meticulous detail that aligned him with the British Pre-Raphaelites. In watercolor and oils, Richards was dedicated to factual, detailed rendering.