Philadelphia artist William Trost Richards Began his career as a designer, before studying with Hudson River School artist Paul Weber. After seeing an exhibition of British art in 1858, he became influenced by the works of the Pre-Raphaelite artists, aligning himself with the movement’s American practitioners and painting with the group’s combination of precise realism and atmospheric quality. He worked from nature, creating near-photorealistic landscapes of the Catskill, Adirondack, and White mountain ranges, and paying particular attention to rock formations. A trip to England inspired Richards to focus on marine subjects, at which he excelled, painting dramatic watercolors of crashing waves under placid skies along America’s East Coast.