Daniel Huntington

Daniel Huntington was a 19th-century American painter who descended from prominent and powerful East Coast families—one grandfather was a congressman (back when there were only 13 colonies), and the other was a general in the American Revolution. While his privileged class certainly helped him quickly rise to the top of the American art scene, he was a notably prolific artist, creating over 1,000 works in a variety of styles. Huntington emulated established European styles like Neoclassicism in his genre and history paintings, but experimented with movements like The Hudson River School in landscape paintings and sketches. Although he traveled frequently to Europe (particularly Paris and London), Huntington was based in New York—the capital of the emerging American art world. Before his death in 1906, he would serve as the president of both the National Academy of Design and the Century Association, and the vice president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.