Hailed as one of the nineteenth century's most visionary artists, Ralph Albert Blakelock created highly expressive, innovative landscapes that greatly influenced the emerging American modernists. Known for his richly-painted Indian encampments and haunting moonlight scenes, much of Blakelock's work is almost abstract, conveying deep recesses of feeling rather than realities of place. He began exhibiting at the National Academy of Design at the age of twenty but did not achieve national fame until the end of his life, when he was institutionalized for mental illness. His paintings set record prices at auctions in the beginning and end of the twentieth century, and figures such as the artist Marsden Hartley and the critic Clement Greenberg came to regard him as one of the most influential American artists. His work is now featured in nearly every major museum, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Questroyal Fine Art held a major retrospective of his life and work in the winter of 2005, entitled "Ralph Albert Blakelock: The Great Mad Genius."

Biography courtesy of Questroyal Fine Art LLC, www.antiquesandfineart.com/questroyal