Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823-1880) was an American landscape painter. He was a leading member of Hudson River School artists, of which Thomas Cole was one of the founding members. He was known for his luminist style of painting and his mastery over light and atmosphere. Gifford was the founder of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1870. The Museum p published the Memorial Catalogue of the Paintings of Sanford Robinson Gifford, which was the compilation of his 735 works made by his friend McEntee and others

His Early Life

Gifford was born in Greenfield, New York in 1823. He was the fourth of his parents’ eleven children. His father was the owner of an iron foundry and a bank. Gifford spent his childhood in Hudson, New York. Following the example of his eldest brother, he became attracted to art at an early age. Experts think that a well-known landscape and portrait painter, Henry Ary, who was in the neighbourhood of famous painter Thomas Cole, might have given Gifford early instructions on art. He studied at Brown University for a short period from 1842-1844 but he did not graduate.

Follower of Thomas Code and Asher B. Durand

Instead, He told his parents about his wish to be an artist. Thereafter, he moved to New York City to study art with the well-known art pedagogue and fine watercolourist, John Rubens Smith. Though Gifford received training to become a portrait and figure painter, he always follow in the footsteps of the famous Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand. By 1847, Gifford had become skilled enough to exhibit his first landscape at the National Academy of Design in New York. He was elected an associate of the Academy in 1851 and thereafter, in 1854, he became an academician.

Gifford, a Traveller

Gifford was a huge admirer of Turner since his boyhood and he studied the master’s works in London’s National Gallery and visited Turner’s champion and critic John Ruskin to discuss his work. Like most Hudson River School artists, Gifford travelled extensively to find scenic landscapes to sketch and paint. He also travelled to Europe from 1855 to 1857 to study European art and sketch subjects for his future paintings. Gifford travelled down the Rhine into Switzerland and Italy and settled down briefly in Rome in 1856. He painted his first major and the largest-known work ‘Lake Nemi‘ during this period and sent it to the Academy that spring.

Return to New York after Successful European Study Tour

During this trip to Europe, he met Albert Bierstadt and Worthington Whittredge. After a sketching tour of southern Italy, northern Austria, Germany and northern Italy in the spring of 1857, Gifford returned to New York. Upon his return from Europe, he served in the Union Army as a corporal in the Seventh Regiment upon the outbreak of the Civil War. He soon rented his working quarters in the new studio building where famous painters like Bierstadt and Frederic Church among several others were his neighbours.

Gifford’s Last World Visit

Gifford made his second and last world visit in 1868-69, undertaking a journey down the River Nile of Egypt. He stopped in Greece, Italy and other European nations on his return journey. Gifford spent some time in Venice, which enjoyed the reputation as the so-called Queen of the Adriatic and a tourist mecca. Thereafter, these destinations became the main theme of his paintings in the subsequent years. Examples of these well-known paintings are

Gifford, an Avid Angler

Gifford was an avid angler and liked his fishing excursions up and down Lake Superior. This was probably during one of these excursions, he contracted a respiratory ailment and his health suffered rapidly. He fell to it in the summer of 1880 at his sixty-sixth age. Besides his art, his colleagues cherished Gifford also for his simplicity and integrity and eulogise him at a memorial of the National Academy of Design. A total of 735 works of Gifford are on the list compiled by his friend McEntee. ‘Tivoli’, ‘Isola Bella in Lago Maggiore’, are a few of them. While in Rome, he had an opportunity to meet with another famous American painter, Frederic Church and his family.

The Final Years of Gifford’s Life

Gifford married Mary Canfield, a widow, in 1877. According to art historians, Gifford had confided with a colleague that he did so primarily as a goodwill gesture to a departed former schoolmate. He produced some of his finest paintings during his last few years, such as ‘Sunset over the Palisades on the Hudson’ in which he adapted the effects of his Italian lake scenes, ‘Ruis of the Parthenon’, etc.

His Memorable Paintings

Some of Gifford’s well-known paintings include ‘Portrait of Mary Cecilla’, ‘Galleries of the Stelvio, Lake Como’, ‘Twilight in the Wilderness, ‘Kauterskill Clove’, ‘The Mouth of the Sherwsbury’, ‘Tivoli’, ‘San Giorgio’, ‘A Venetian Twilight’, ‘The Matterhorn at Sunrise’, ‘The Parthenon’, ‘Venice’, ‘Lake Geneva’, ‘Pallanza Lago Maggior’Sioute’, ‘Fishing Boats of the Adriatric’, ‘Adriatic’, ‘The Ruins of the Parthenon’, ‘A Passing Storm’, The Wilderness’, ‘Lake Nemi’, ‘Hook Mountain on the Hudson River’, ‘Hunder Mountain, Twilight’, ‘Siout, Egypt’, ‘Venetian Sails, a Study’, Leander’s Tower on the Bospho’rus’, ‘The Lagoons of Venice’, ‘San Giorgio, Venice’, ‘Tivoli’, ‘Venice’, ‘On the Nile’, ‘Siout, Egypt’, ‘Mount Mansfield’, ‘A Gorge in the Mountains, (Kauterskill Falls)’, etc.