Born in England, Edward Moran is best known for his marine paintings,
and is credited with the Moran family's entry into the art world.
His
family immigrated to Maryland in 1844 from Lancashire, England, where
his father was a hand loom weaver. Edward, who was one of twelve
children, left home to work in a cotton factory in Philadelphia.
He impressed his employer with the large, wall-sized, sketches he did,
and was encouraged to pursue art as a career. He and his brother
studied and shared a studio in Philadelphia and then both returned for
a time to England. There copying the paintings of J M W Turner
heavily influenced them.
In the mid-1850s, when Philadelphia
was experiencing the peak of the U.S. clipper ship production, Edward
was influenced by James Hamilton, a prominent Irish-born marine
painter, and also by landscapist Paul Weber. This influence is
clear in his painting, New Castle on the Delaware. I n turn,
Edward Moran had influence on the landscape painter William Washington
Girard, who went to New York City about 1900 to study with him.
Edward
was known for his silvery tones and loose accents of light. He
developed a style based primarily upon English painting of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and seventeenth-century Dutch
painting. Edward Moran's forte was seascapes. His Hints for Practical Study of Marine Painting were published in issues of Art Amateur in 1888, and reflected his expertise on the subject.
Moran was also a history painter, but chose marine painting to represent his work.
Edward
was the father of the genre painter Percy (Edward Percy) Moran.
Although Edward's more famous brother, Thomas, known as the primary
artist of the final decades of Western exploration, perhaps overshadows
him in the history of art, it was commonly thought that at the time of
his death in 1901 Edward Moran had no superior in marine painting in
America.
Edward Moran, the oldest of the artistic Moran brothers, was
acknowledged as the impetus behind the family's entry into the art
world. "He taught the rest of us Morans all we know about art," stated
his famous younger brother Thomas. During a long and successful
career, Edward Moran became a member of the Philadelphia Academy of the
Fine Arts and an Associate of the National Academy of Design.
After
working at a variety of trades, he turned to painting in the early
1850s. The first twenty-seven years of his artistic career were spent
in Philadelphia, where he studied painting with the marine painter
James Hamilton and with the landscapist Paul Weber. Moran's
training with Hamilton and Weber is clear in New Castle on the
Delaware. Stylistically, the painting exhibits the careful
details and truth to nature of his more detailed early phase. In
1861, Moran-traveled to London for additional instruction at the Royal
Academy, and in 1871 he relocated to the New York area, where he
remained for the rest of his life.
Seascapes were Moran's
forté. By the 1880s, the artist was considered such an expert on
the subject that his "hints for practical study' of marine painting
were published in the September and November, 1888, issues of the Art Amateur.
After his death, an admirer wrote that "As a painter of the sea in its
many moods and phases, Edward Moran ... had no superior in America."
In the year New Castle on the Delaware
was finished, Moran exhibited two paintings with that title; one was
shown at the annual exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
Arts, and the other was exhibited at the National Academy of Design in
New York. One of these paintings may be the version now at the
Butler Institute. The painting depicts the town of New Castle, located
on the west bank of the Delaware River. Settled by the Dutch as
New Amstel in the 1650s, New Castle is situated about six miles south
of Wilmington and less than three miles southwest of the present-day
Delaware Memorial Bridge. The building in the center with a
cupola is the terminal building of the New Castle and Frenchtown
Turnpike Company, located on the battery, now Battery Park.
Immediately in front of it is the Banks Building, with its porch front,
the site of an old market on the wharf. Near the center of town
is a square tower that probably represents the unfinished new
Presbyterian Church, construction of which began in 1854. Further
back, at the top of the hill, is the white spire of Immanuel Church,
built in 1689 and given its present spire in 1820-22.
As painted by Moran, New Castle Harbor
contains the usual complement of sailing vessels, including a boat in
the foreground appropriately named the 'New Castle'. Surprisingly, only
two boats in the harbor are side-wheelers, the steam-powered vessels
introduced earlier in the century that led to the decline of the
clipper ships. Moran continued to paint nautical subjects for the rest
of his career. After a trip to France from 1877 to 1879, however, his
work became broader in handling, less detailed, and more painterly than
the Butler Institute painting.
Edward Moran moved with his family to New York City in 1870.
During this time, New York harbor was bustling with marine
traffic. While in New York, Moran had the opportunity to work
with the luminist artists John F. Kensett, Martin Johnson Heade and
Sanford R. Gifford, who all exhibited regularly at the National Academy
of Design. Moran quickly absorbed the concepts of luminism and
for several years experimented with this aesthetic. As a result,
in the early 1870's his palette brightens, his compositions are
simpler, and the light in his paintings is more atmospheric.
Born
in England, Edward Moran is best known for his marine paintings, and is
credited with the Moran family's entry into the art world. His
family immigrated to Maryland in 1844 from Lancashire, England, where
his father was a handloom weaver. Edward, who was one of twelve
children, left home to work in a cotton factory in Philadelphia.
He impressed his employer with the large, wall-sized, sketches he did,
and was encouraged to pursue art as a career. He and his brother
studied and shared a studio in Philadelphia and then both returned for
a time to England. There copying the paintings of J M W Turner heavily
influenced them.
In the mid-1850s, when Philadelphia was
experiencing the peak of the U.S. clipper ship production, Edward was
influenced by James Hamilton, a prominent Irish-born marine painter,
and also by landscapist Paul Weber.
Edward was known for his
silvery tones and loose accents of light. He developed a style
based primarily upon English painting of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries and seventeenth-century Dutch painting. Edward Moran's forte
was seascapes.
Moran was also a history painter, but chose marine painting to represent his work.
Edward
was the father of the genre painter Percy (Edward Percy) Moran.
Although Edward's more famous brother, Thomas, known as the primary
artist of the final decades of Western exploration, perhaps overshadows
him in the history of art, it was commonly thought that at the time of
his death in 1901 Edward Moran had no superior in marine painting in
America.
Public Collections:
Butler Institute of American Art, OH
Chrysler Museum, VA
National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C.
United States Naval Academy, MD
Denver Art Museum
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
Memberships:
American Watercolor Society
National Academy of Design
Philadelphia Sketch Club
Society of Illustrators
Lotus Club
While
known for his historical scenes, landscapes and genre paintings, Edward
Moran achieved national recognition as a marine painter. Born in
Bolton, England in 1829, he came to America in 1844 with his brothers,
Thomas and Peter, and settled in Maryland.
Moran studied at the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia with Paul Weber
and James Hamilton. In 1862, he traveled to England and continued his
studies at the Royal Academy. Upon his return to America in 1877, Moran
established his studio in New York City and won acclaim for his marine
paintings.
His series of thirteen paintings, influenced by J.M.W. Turner and
depicting important epochs in United States marine history, were widely
exhibited.
Moran was a member of the National Academy of Design, the
American Watercolor Society, and the Lotus Club.
His work is
represented in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the
Museum of Modern Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Denver
Art Museum. Moran was part of a great dynasty of American art. His
brothers, Thomas and Peter, and his sons, Percy and Leon, were all
distinguished artists.
Moran died in 1901
Edward Moran studied art under Paul Weber and James Hamilton in
Philadelphia and traveled to Europe to study in 1862. He was one
of four of his brothers to become artists.
Moran was best
known for his marine and shore scenes which usually included fishermen
working on their boats. He traveled to London where he was
greatly influenced by J.M.W. Turner.
Moran's work reflected
the same sense of drama as Turner, with brilliant skies and bright
green-blue turbulent seas. By 1857 he had established himself as
an artist in Philadelphia. He chose to move to New York City in
1872 where he remained for the rest of his career.
The last
decade of his life was dedicated to producing 13 important epochs of
U.S. Marine history. These paintings were widely exhibited but
did not garner the expected monetary value of the time
