Thomas Cole was born at Bolton in Lancashire on 1 February 1801. In his youth he was trained as an engraver of woodblocks used for printing calico. Because he had no formal art education, his aesthetic ideas derived from poetry and literature, influences that were strongly to mark his paintings. The Cole family migrated to America in 1818, but Thomas spent a year alone in Philadelphia, before going on to Steubenville, Ohio, where the Coles eventually settled. He spent several years designing patterns and probably also engraving woodblocks for his father’s wallpaper manufactory. He made his first attempts at landscape painting after learning the essentials of oil painting from an itinerant portrait painter named Stein. Cole enjoyed little success with portraits and shifted his focus to landscape. He moved to Pittsburgh in 1823 where he executed detailed and systematic studies of that city’s scenery, establishing a procedure of painstakingly detailed drawing that was to become the foundation of his landscape painting. He moved to Philadelphia in 1824, where he studied the landscapes of Thomas Doughty and Thomas Birch exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He rejoined his parents and sister in New York City early in 1825. There, he produced a series of works, following a sketching trip up the Hudson River in the summer of 1825. These brought him to the attention of the city’s most important artists and patrons. From then on, his future as a landscape painter was assured. After 1827 Cole maintained a studio at the farm called Cedar Grove in the town of Catskill, New York. He painted a significant portion of his work in this studio. In 1836 he married Maria Bartow of Catskill, a niece of the owner, and became a year-round resident. Their happy union would produce five children. In 1829 Cole set off for Europe, to study first-hand the great works of the past. His visits to the great galleries of London, Paris and Italy filled his imagination with high-minded themes and ideas. A true Romantic spirit, he sought to express in his painting the elevated moral tone and concern with lofty themes previously the province of history painting. When he returned to America, he found an enlightened patron in the New York merchant Luman Reed, who commissioned from him The Course of Empire (1836), a five-canvas extravaganza depicting the progress of a society from the savage state to an apogee of luxury and, finally, to dissolution and extinction. Most New York patrons, however, preferred recognisable American views, which Cole, his technique further improved by his European experience, was able to paint with increased authority. Although he frequently complained that he would prefer not to have to paint those so-called realistic views, Cole’s work in the landscape genre reveal the same high-principled, intellectual content that informs his religious and allegorical works. He is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School. A second trip to Europe, in 1841-42, resulted in even greater advances in his art. In Florence he lived with the sculptor Horatio Greenough His use of colour showed greater virtuosity and his representation of atmosphere, especially the sky, became almost palpably luminous. Cole’s oeuvre, in addition to naturalistic American and European views, consisted of Gothic fantasies (The Departure and The Return, 1837), religious allegories (The Voyage of Life, 1840), and Classic pastorals (The Dream of Arcadia, 1838). Cole dabbled in architecture and entered the design competition held in 1838 to create a new state government building in Columbus, Ohio. His entry won third premium, and many contend that the completed building, a composite of the first, second and third place entries, bears a great similarity to his entry. Cole recorded his thoughts in a formidable body of writing: detailed journals, many poems, and an influential essay on American scenery. He also encouraged the careers of Asher B Durand and Frederic E Church, two artists who would continue the painting tradition he had established. Cole’s sudden death at Catskill, after a short illness on 11 February 1848, sent shock waves through the New York art world, the many achievements that were his legacy provided a firm ground for the continued growth of the school of American landscape. The fourth highest peak in the Catskill Mountains is named Thomas Cole Mountain in his honour. Cole’s papers may be found in the archive of the Albany Institute of History and Art, New York.