Brief Biography-Sanford Robinson Gifford from New York State was a member of the Hudson River School, renowned for landscapes in the style of Luminism. He studied under the artist John Rubens Smith and at the National Academy of Design in New York, where he became an academician in 1854. Thomas Cole influenced his works which stirred him to focus on landscape painting.
On his tour of Europe in 1855, he travelled around Italy with Albert Bierstadt. The paintings of Thomas Turner in England impressed him, which inspired his light effects.
He signed up with the Seventh Regiment of the New York State National Guard in 1861. During his service, he undertook several paintings and became involved with the U.S. Geological Survey. In 1870 he travelled the Rocky Mountains in the western United States with Worthington Whittredge aand John Frederick Kensett. He died at the relatively early age of fifty-seven from a respiratory condition.