Jasper Cropsey

Jasper Francis Cropsey
Portrait of Jasper Francis Cropsey
Born	(1823-02-18)February 18, 1823 Staten Island, New York, U.S.
Died	June 22, 1900(1900-06-22) (aged 77)
Nationality	American
Education	Hudson River School
Known for	Landscape art, painting

Jasper Francis Cropsey (February 18, 1823 – June 22, 1900) was an important American landscape artist of the Hudson River School.

Cropsey was born on his father Jacob Rezeau Cropsey's farm in Rossville on Staten Island, New York, the oldest of eight children. As a young boy, Cropsey had recurring periods of poor health. While absent from school, Cropsey taught himself to draw. His early drawings included architectural sketches and landscapes drawn on notepads and in the margins of his schoolbooks.

Trained as an architect, he set up his own office in 1843. Cropsey studied watercolor and life drawing at the National Academy of Design under the instruction of Edward Maury and first exhibited there in 1844. A year later he was elected an associate member and turned exclusively to landscape painting; shortly after he was featured in an exhibition entitled "Italian Compositions".

Cropsey married Maria Cooley in May 1847, traveled in Europe from 1847–1849, visiting England, France, Switzerland, and Italy. He was elected a full member of the Academy in 1851. Cropsey was a personal friend of Henry Tappan, the president of the University of Michigan from 1852 to 1863. At Tappan's invitation, he traveled to Ann Arbor in 1855 and produced two paintings, one of the Detroit Observatory, and a landscape of the campus. He went abroad again in 1856, and resided seven years in London, sending his pictures to the Royal Academy and to the International exhibition of 1862.

Cropsey had met Maria Cooley during one of his visits to Greenwood Lake after 1843. Maria's father, Isaac P. Cooley, was a justice of the peace from 1837 to 1839 and became a judge over the New Jersey Court of Common Pleas in 1840. Cooley then became a member of New Jersey State House of Assembly from 1860 to 1861. Cooley offered to build Cropsey a studio on his estate but the offer was declined. In 1869 Cropsey built a 29-room Gothic Revival mansion and studio in Warwick, New York that he named Aladdin. As well as living in New York City, he spent part of his time in Warwick until the mansion was sold in 1884.