Landscape painter Vincent Colyer, born in Bloomingdale, New York, earned a reputation as a serious artist as well as skilled government official. He is noted for the images he created of the American West, especially Indian subjects, landscapes, and botanical specimens. In the Eastern United States, he became a noted crayon-portrait artist.

Colyer studied at the National Academy of Design in New York and with painter John Rubens Smith for four years. From 1848 to 1860, he earned a living doing crayon portraits. During the Civil War, he served in the medical corps, and in 1866, settled in Darien, Connecticut near his good friend, painter John Kensett (1816-1872). Shortly thereafter, Colyer serv...