(1858-1916) A leading artist of the Tonalist movement, Henry Ward Ranger was responsible for the establishment of one of America's most famous art colonies. Ranger was raised in Geneseo and Syracuse, New York, where his father was a professor of photography and drawing at Syracuse University. Ranger enrolled at the university but left to work in his father's studio. He studied art in France, where he was influenced by the Barbizon School and a group of Dutch painters called "The Hague." Ranger exhibited at the Paris Salon and the Paris Exposition and had a one-man show at Knoedler's in New York in 1892. He became a successful lecturer and painter, exhibiting at the Brooklyn Art Association, the National Academy, the Art Institute of Chicago, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Corcoran Gallery, and several expositions. In the 1890s he met Florence Griswold whose home in Old Lyme, Connecticut would become a center of artistic activity. Captivated by the area's beauty, Ranger began painting in Old Lyme and established the American Barbizon School, attracting many artists there. Ironically, the colony became synonymous with an American version of Impressionism, a style Ranger disliked. Ranger objected to the Impressionists' method of fast-paced outdoor painting in a light palette. While his own paintings were based on plein-air sketches, Ranger finished his works in the studio in the traditional academic manner. Soon after Childe Hassam arrived at Old Lyme, Ranger left and established a new colony at Noank, near Mystic on the Connecticut coast. Despite the somber palette that characterizes Tonalist painting, Ranger's works are soft, lush, and romantic. He died in 1916 without family, leaving his estate to the National Academy of Design to establish a fund for the acquisition of works by American artists. Ranger's own works are represented in many American institutions.

Biography courtesy of Roger King Gallery of Fine Art, www.antiquesandfineart.com/rking

Henry Ward Ranger was one of the preeminent figures in the Tonalist movement, which flourished in the United States from the mid-1880s until about 1920.

Born in Geneseo, New York, he grew up in nearby Syracuse, and attended the College of Fine Arts at Syracuse University. In 1875 he began working in his father's photography studio while painting watercolors in his spare time.

Periods of activity in New York and Europe provided him with the opportunity to study contemporary art, especially the atmospheric, mood-filled paintings of the French Barbizon and Hague schools, which exerted a profound influence on his work.

Ranger achieved his earliest success in watercolor exhibitions in New York, Boston, and Paris. During the mid-l880s he began working in oil, producing views of European scenery as well as forest and woodland scenes in Quebec and in the countryside outside New York.

He made his first visit to southern Connecticut in 1898 and in the following year founded the Old Lyme art colony. By 1903 Ranger was making seasonal visits to the fishing town of Noank, Connecticut, where he eventually acquired a summer home and studio.

A notable figure in the New York art world, Ranger belonged to the major art clubs and societies of his day, including the National Academy of Design, to which he willed his estate. The artist was also active as a writer, producing several articles on watercolor painting.

Biography courtesy of Roughton Galleries, www.antiquesandfineart.com/roughton