His mother was born a slave, but escaped to Pennsylvania via the Underground Railroad and was a free woman by the time he was born. And although he wanted to establish himself in the art world, the legacy of slavery overshadowed him. In painting African-American...

  Born a peasant, he proudly proclaimed that he would die a peasant. All he had ever known was rural country life, hard-working farmers toiling over the earth. These scenes would influence his art like nothing else could. And he, in turn, would influence two of...

As an artist he brought luminosity, expression, atmosphere, and turbulence to his landscape and seascape paintings. His abstract brushstrokes and palette knife paintings baffled many viewers in his day, but inspired the Impressionist masters. He is the original...