Collection: Art prints by Thomas Moran

Thomas Moran was an American painter of the 19th and early 20th century who is best known for his monumental depictions of the American wilderness and western landscapes. He was born in England and emigrated with his family to the United States as a child, where he initially trained as an artist in Philadelphia and was deeply impressed early on by the works of J.M.W. Turner, whose luminous colors and atmospheric boldness had a lasting influence on his own painterly thinking. He also received decisive impulses from his affiliation with the Hudson River School, whose romantic conception of nature he further developed with his own colorful, exalted style.

Moran devoted himself above all to the landscapes of the American West, in particular the geysers and thermal springs of the Yellowstone region, the gorges of the Grand Canyon, the rock towers of the Yosemite Valley and the coastal landscapes of Florida. His pictures often show overwhelming natural spectacles in dramatic light, in which glowing skies, deep gorges and enormous rock formations are combined to create impressive pictorial compositions. His large-format paintings "The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone" from 1872 and "Chasm of the Colorado" from 1873, which were purchased by the US Congress and played a key role in encouraging public support for the establishment of the first American national parks, became particularly well known.

Stylistically, Moran's works are characterized by a luminous, at times almost visionary use of colour, a dramatic use of light and a generous, confident brushwork. He combined the romantic tradition of the sublime with an immediate enthusiasm for the geological and atmospheric characteristics of the American landscape. He did not shy away from deliberate exaggeration and intensification in order to convey to the viewer the wonder and awe that he himself had felt in the face of the natural wonders of the West.

Thomas Moran was extraordinarily successful during his lifetime and enjoyed a high reputation as an artistic ambassador of the American wilderness. His nickname "Thomas Yellowstone Moran" testifies to how closely his name was associated with that landscape, which he brought to the attention of the American public like no other artist of his time. Today, he is considered one of America's most important landscape painters, whose works are preserved and highly valued in major American museums for their painterly boldness, their cultural and historical significance for the American conservation movement and their undiminished coloristic radiance.