William Sidney Mount

William Sidney Mount painted rural life on Long Island with warmth and gentle humour: farmers bargaining, boys playing truant, fiddlers and dancers in barns. He was the first American born artist to specialise in genre painting, and his scenes are clear, sunny and carefully composed.

He was born and died in Setauket, New York. Largely self taught, he started in his brother’s sign painting business, copied Hogarth’s engravings and studied at the National Academy of Design. Music was a lifelong passion, and he designed and patented his own violin. His paintings often include African American musicians and neighbours, painted with individual character. The Long Island Museum of American Art in Stony Brook holds the largest collection of his work, and he is also represented in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Bargaining for a Horse (1835), with two men whittling as they haggle, is his best known image.