Born in Evans Creek, Ohio, Alexander Wyant was a tonalist landscape and genre painter who was part of the Hudson River School painters but who is credited with making the transition within that School from a tight, restrictive style to the freer methods of Impressionism. He was much influenced by the French Barbizon impressionists, and his signature grandiose eastern mountain landscapes with dramatic cloud formations were much sought after during his lifetime.

He was raised in a family of itinerant farmers and early apprenticed to a harness maker and sign painter. His commitment to becoming an artist resulted from his seeing landscapes by George Inness Sr. in an exhibition in Cincinnati in 1857. He made a trip t...