William Trost Richards, renowned during the late nineteenth century for both his landscapes and seascapes, was born in Philadelphia in 1833. He taught himself to draw at an early age; later, around 1850, he obtained employment as a designer and illustrator of ornamental metalwork. During his evenings, he studied with the German-born artist Paul Weber, a landscapist and portrait painter whose concern for meticulous detail and precision strengthened the style that Richards was developing through his work as a designer. During this period, Richards was also active as a writer of essays which appeared in the publications of the Forensic and Literary Circle of Philadelphia, of which he was a founding member. In 1852, he made his first contributions to the annual exhibitions of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He was elected a full Academician one year later. His earliest landscapes reflect the prevailing influence of the Hudson River School painters. In 1854, Richards is known to have met with both Frederic E. Church and John F. Kensett in New York. He also went sketching with Jasper Cropsey, in Philadelphia, later that year.

Richards traveled to Europe in August of 1855, visiting France, Switzerland, Italy and Zurich. He returned to Philadelphia in 1856 and soon began exhibiting his work at the Art Union of Philadelphia, the American Watercolor Society, the National Academy of Design as well as the Pennsylvania Academy. In 1858, he saw a display of paintings by the English Pre-Raphaelite artists and came away strongly influenced by their approach. He soon became identified with the American Pre-Raphaelite movement. In conjunction with the group's aesthetic outlook, his rural landscapes and botanical studies from the 1860s are characterized by careful, precise draughtsmanship and scientific accuracy -- ideas embodied in the writings of John Ruskin, whose "truth to nature" dictum was a guiding force behind Pre-Raphaelitism. Richards was also a member of the New York-based Association for the Advancement of Truth in Art.

Following the Civil War, Richards traveled with his family to Europe in the winter of 1866-67. In addition to visiting his former teacher, Paul Weber, in Darmstadt, he sketched and painted throughout Switzerland and Italy. Around 1868, after returning to America, he began to focus his attention on rendering the sea. After 1871, he specialized almost exclusively on coastal seascapes. He was always careful to emphasize the most distinctive geological features of each location as well as the effects of light on wet sand or gentle or turbulent water. He would frequently analyze the motions of waves through careful and meticulous observation. In 1875, he bought the first of several summer homes in Newport, Rhode Island which became his favorite site for sketching and painting.

In 1878, Richards journeyed to England, remaining there until 1880. During this time, he traveled throughout the British Isles, developing a particular fondness for the rugged coast of Cornwall. He also expanded the market for his work, exhibiting
at both the Royal Academy and the Paris Exposition as well as at several private galleries.

Richards' activity as a painter continued up until his death in 1905. In his later years, he continued to travel abroad, often to sketch along the coastal regions of Scotland and Ireland. His late work, after the mid-1880s, reveals the influence of Impressionism and plein air painting, evident in his use of a looser brushstroke, a broader treatment of form and an overall poetic approach.

A prolific artist, Richards received many awards and prizes throughout his long career, including a bronze medal at the 1889 Paris Exposition and a gold medal at the Pennsylvania Academy in 1905. Representative examples of his work can be found in major public and private collections throughout the United States including the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.


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