Samuel Colman

Samuel Colman painted American landscapes in the Romantic tradition of the Hudson River School, then widened his range with the places he saw on long journeys through Europe, North Africa and the American West. His pictures are calm and luminous, with soft skies, still water and a careful sense of distance.

He was born in Portland, Maine, in 1832 and studied with the Hudson River School painter Asher Durand. He became a full member of the National Academy of Design in 1862 and was the founding president of the American Watercolor Society. His Storm King on the Hudson, from 1866, is in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and The Hill of the Alhambra is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Colman also worked as an interior designer alongside Louis Comfort Tiffany. In paintings like Off the Maine Coast or Ausable River, the attraction is the quiet light and the gentle, balanced composition.