Bruce Crane (1857-1937)

Painting golden Tonalist landscapes, Bruce Crane composed fall and winter seasonal scenes. Born and raised in New York, Crane was exposed to city galleries and museums through his father that was an amateur painter. Bruce was employed as a draftsman before devoting his career to painting. He attended the Art Students League in New York and studied in Europe. He was heavily influenced by the French Barbizon school of painting, and his training under the landscape painter Alexander H. Wyant and the practice of painting en plein-air had lasting effect on his choice of subject.

His subjects were drawn from East Hampton, New Jersey, and Connecticut. In addition to his golden tone, his style was literal and detailed before it became more Impressionistic. Crane sought to reproduce subjects such as pastures, hayfields, barnyards and mountains with truth to nature combined with a poetic sentiment and a sparkling quality. Recognition was reached in 1881 for his landscapes, and reached popularity in the late 1890s upon receiving the Webb Prize from the Society of American Artists. Part of his career included teaching. In 1915, he took part in establishing the Twelve Landscape Painters, which was an exhibiting organization of artists. Bruce Crane died in New York in 1937 at the age of eighty.