Thomas Moran
Biography
Thomas Moran was born in England and moved with his family to Philadelphia at age seven. He briefly apprenticed with a wood engraver before shifting his focus to painting and illustration, eventually becoming a prolific illustrator. In 1862, after a trip to Lake Superior that inspired a series based on Longfellow’s Hiawatha, Moran traveled to England with his brother Edward. A turning point in his career came in 1871 when he joined Ferdinand V. Hayden’s geological survey of Yellowstone as a guest artist, funded by Scribner’s and Jay Cooke. During this expedition, Moran worked alongside photographer William H. Jackson, producing striking images of Yellowstone’s canyons, geysers, and hot springs that captured the American imagination and played a key role in the creation of Yellowstone as the first national park. In 1872, Moran visited Yosemite, and in 1873 he joined John Wesley Powell’s geological survey of the Grand Canyon and Colorado River, further expanding his iconic depictions of the American West. He returned to Colorado with Hayden in 1874, visiting the newly discovered Mount of the Holy Cross. Although Moran lived primarily in the East, he made frequent trips west, often as a guest artist of the Santa Fe Railway, creating powerful landscapes that defined how Americans viewed the grandeur of the West.