One of the most prolific and commercially successful American landscape painters of the late nineteenth century, Edmund Darch Lewis rendered crisply realistic images of shorelines, waterways, and rural scenes in the northeast that received popular acclaim during his era.

Lewis was born in Philadelphia. At age fifteen, he began to study art, enrolling in a private class with Paul Weber. His initial works were landscapes and marine views, focusing on the Lehigh, Susquehana, and Wissahickon Rivers of Pennsylvania. These paintings were described in the Philadelphia Public Ledger as demonstrating "a tremendous talent, great freedom from tradition," and they "promised a departure from the beaten tracks." (1) Lewis's art was in high dema...