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jasper
francis cropsey (1823 – 1900) |
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1823 - 1841
Jasper Cropsey was born on his father’s farm in Rossville, Staten Island on
February 18, 1823. As a young boy, Cropsey had
recurring periods of poor health. During these periods, while absent from
school, Cropsey taught himself to draw. His early drawings were
architectural sketches and landscapes drawn on notepads and in the margins
of his schoolbooks.
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Cropsey Farm, Staten Island, 1843
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His artistic skills improved rapidly as Jasper mimicked
whatever paintings, drawings, and architectural renderings he could find. At
the age of fourteen, Cropsey entered an architectural model in a contest and
won a diploma from the 1837 Mechanics Institute of New York fair. Soon
Jasper Cropsey began a five-year apprenticeship for Joseph Trench,
architect. Trench realized young Jasper’s artistic ability and provided him
with studio space and art supplies in order to develop his artistic skills.
Jasper took advantage of Trench’s encouragement and sketched and painted
whenever he could. Cropsey mostly painted landscapes, copied from engravings
of Claude Lorrain and other landscape artists. |
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1842-1849 |
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1850-1862 |
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1863-1900 |
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