Winckworth Allan Gay


Winckworth Allan Gay was an American landscape artist and was one of the first American artists to promote the Barbizon style of landscape painting.

Life and career

Winckworth Allan Gay was born into a Massachusetts' family on 18 August 1821. He received his early art education from Robert Walter Weir, at Westpoint, after which he spent four years in Europe, where he studied with Constant Troyon in Paris. He became one of the first Americans to espouse the Barbizon style of landscape painting.
After returning to the US, he established a studio in Boston. He frequently travelled to the White Mountains region in New Hampshire, and especially to West Compton, where an artist’s colony was flourishing. He returned to Europe in 1877, and also visited Egypt and Japan. During his four year stay in Japan, he executed a number of paintings which have been described as Orienalis.
His unique talent was to integrate the Barbizon style of painting with the more well-known Hudson River School style. His work was very popular with collectors. During his lifetime, his work appeared at the Boston Art Club, and the National Academy of Design.
His work is in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts.
His sketchbook is held at the Archives of American Art.
Gay died at his home in West Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1910, aged 88.

Work