Jasper Francis Cropsey

Jasper Francis Cropsey (February 18, 1823 – June 22, 1900) was an American architect and artist. He is best known for his

Early years

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Cropsey was born on his father Jacob Rezeau Cropsey's farm in Rossville on Staten Island, New York, the oldest of eight children. As a young boy, Cropsey had recurring periods of poor health. While absent from school, Cropsey taught himself to draw. His early drawings included architectural sketches and landscapes drawn on notepads and in the margins of his schoolbooks.

Career

Cropsey trained as an architect under the tuition of Joseph Trench in the early 1840s, a period in which he was also trained in watercolor painting, instructed by Edward Maury, and took some life drawing courses at the National Academy of Design.^[2] He set up his own architecture office in 1843, but began exhibiting his watercolors at the National Academy of Design in 1844. A year later he was elected an associate member and turned exclusively to landscape painting; shortly after he was featured in an exhibition entitled "Italian Compositions".

Cropsey traveled in Europe from 1847 to 1849, visiting England, France, Switzerland, and Italy. He was elected a full member of the Academy in 1851. Cropsey was a personal friend of

Returning home, he opened a studio in New York and specialized in autumnal landscape paintings of the northeastern United States, often idealized and with vivid colors. Cropsey co-founded, with ten fellow artists, the

Cropsey's interest in architecture continued throughout his life and was a strong influence in his painting, most evident in his precise arrangement and outline of forms. But Cropsey was best known for his lavish use of color and, as a first-generation member from the Hudson River School, painted autumn landscapes that startled viewers with their boldness and brilliance. As an artist, he believed landscapes were the highest art form and that nature was a direct manifestation of God. He also felt a patriotic affiliation with nature and saw his paintings as depicting the rugged and unspoiled qualities of America.

Jasper Cropsey died in anonymity but was rediscovered by galleries and collectors in the 1960s. Today, Cropsey's paintings are found in many major American museums, including the

Some of Cropsey's works include Jedburgh Abbey; Pontaine Marshes (1847); Backwoods of America (1857);^[12] Richmond Hill (1862); Indian Summer (1866);^[13] Greenwood Lake (1875); Lake Nemi in Italy (1879); Old Church at Arreton, Isle of Wight (1880); Ramapo Valley (1881); Autumn on the Hudson (1860): Wawayanda Valley (1883); Spring-time in England (1884); October in Ramapo Valley (1885); Autumn on Lake George, and A Showery Day (1886).

His architectural works included New York City

• 
  The Spirit of War, 1851
• 
  High Torne Mountain, Rockland County, New York, 1851
• 
  The Coast of Genoa, 1854
• 
  Catskill Mountain House, 1855
• 
  Summer, Lake Ontario, 1857
• 
  Autumn on the Hudson, 1860
• 
  Autumn on Greenwood Lake, 1861
• 
  The Narrows from Staten Island, 1868
• 
  The Valley of Wyoming, 1865, Metropolitan Museum of Art
• 
  Greenwood Lake, 1875, Smithsonian American Art Museum
• 
  Greenwood Lake, 1879
• 
  University of Michigan, Jasper Cropsey, 1855, University of Michigan Museum of Art

Some of Cropsey's painting command high prices at auctions. Greenwood Lake (1879) sold at Christie's auction in 2012 for $422,500.^[20] Sunset, Camel's Hump, Lake Champlain (1877) sold for $314,500 in 2011.^[21]

Collection

Cropsey's home and studio, Ever Rest, in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, has the largest permanent collection of Cropsey's work, collected by his great-granddaughter Barbara Newington. The collection has been on display since 1977 and the founding of the Newington-Cropsey Foundation.^[22]

Personal life

Cropsey married Maria Cooley in May 1847. He had met her during one of his visits to

In 1884 Cropsey first rented then in 1885 bought a house at Hastings-on-Hudson, New York he named Ever Rest. He and Maria had two children: Mary Cortelyou Cropsey Howells (b. September. 5, 1850, d. July 30, 1921)^[25] and Lilly Frances Cropsey (b. July 16, 1859, d. February 21, 1889). Cropsey lived at Ever Rest until his death on June 22, 1900, and his wife Maria lived there until she died in 1906, having been married to "Frank" for 54 years.^[26][27]

Legacy and honors

• The
  Liberty Ship SS Jasper F. Cropsey
  was named in his honor.

• 
  Headstone in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
• 
  Cropsey's home Ever Rest
• 
  The Newington-Cropsey Foundation's Gallery of Art, a museum of Cropsey's works

See also

• List of Hudson River School artists

References

Notes

Sources

• Wilson, James Grant, ed. (1888). "Cropsey, Jasper Francis". Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography. Vol. 2. p. 16.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jasper Francis Cropsey.

• Works at The Athenaeum Archived June 24, 2021, at the Wayback Machine
• Newington Cropsey Foundation
• White Mountain Paintings by Jasper Francis Cropsey
• Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
• Apple Blossoms by Jasper Cropsey
• Alfred Brophy, Property and Progress: Antebellum Landscape Art and Property Law, McGeorge Law Review 40 (2008): 651
• Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza Biography and Works
• Reynolda House Museum of American Art
• American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Cropsey (see index)
• Jasper Francis Cropsey at the National Gallery of Art