Edward B. Gay (1837-1928)
A well known landscape painter, Edward Gay was born in Ireland on April 25th, 1837, and moved to the United States in 1848 to escape the Potato Famine, settling with his family in Albany, New York. He was urged to paint by the Hart brothers and George Boughton, prominent local artists. He traveled to Germany in the early 1860′s to study further. When he returned to the United States in 1864, at the heighth of the Hudson River School’s dominance of the American art world, he moved to Mount Vernon, New York, just north of New York City. It was here he found most of his inspiration, probably including the pastoral work offered here. He also painted in South Carolina, where his daughter lived, as well as in Europe, and in Cragsmoor, his summer home in upstate New York. He died in Mount Vernon, New York in 1928.
Information courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions Inc.