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Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Robert Swain Gifford (1840-1905) was one of America's prominent landscape & marine painters in the late 19th century. He received his first instruction in drawing during the late 1850s from Albert van Beest & William Bradford at New Bedford, Massachusetts.
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Gifford's early paintings, which featured dramatic seascapes with storm-tossed boats, reflected his natural respect for this subject as well as his lessons with the Dutch painter van Beest.
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Later, Walton Richetson, a New Bedford sculptor, shared his studio with Gifford.
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Much of his work focuses on the landscapes of New England, where he was born. He, along with Victorian contemporaries from the White Mountain & Hudson River Schools, helped immortalize the majestic cliffs of Grand Manan in the Bay of Fundy.
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In 1864, Gifford opened a studio in Boston; but in 1866, he settled in New York City.
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One year later, he was elected an associate of the National Academy of Design & was made a full academician in 1878.
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In 1869, he sketched in Washington, Oregon, & California, & in 1870 made an extensive trip abroad, visiting England, France, Spain, Italy, Morocco, & Egypt. Four years later, he made a similar journey that included Corsica, Algeria, & parts of North Africa seldom visited by tourists. About 10 years later, he returned for a 3rd visit to the Middle East.
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After this, Gifford divided his time between his New York studio & his summer home at Nonquitt, Massachusetts, with the exception of a 3 month voyage to Alaska in 1899. He was one of the early artists into Alaska, going there as a commissioned landscape painter for the Harriman Expediditon, which traveled up the coast of Alaska as far as Plover Bay in Siberia.
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Beginning in 1877 & for nearly thirty years thereafter, he taught art classes at the Cooper Union School in New York.
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One of the earliest Americans to take up the technique of etching, Gifford helped to establish the New York Etching Club in 1877.
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During his 2nd trip abroad in 1874, Gifford visited the museum in Marseille, whose "fine collection of modern French paintings" may have reinforced his admiration for the Barbizon artists, which he had first seen in Boston several years before.
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Within a few years after his return, Gifford's style was largely purged of his previously overblown romanticism. Tonalism, characterized by stark, simpler compositions, wide spacious vistas, &, most typically, a cold, somber mood drawn from the barren dunes & rugged cedars of the coast, replaced his earlier style. Personally, I am more attracted to his early paintings..