George Inness

George Inness was an influential 19th century American painter whose work depicted landscapes and explored many different facets of American society. Inness was involved with both the transcendentalism movement and the Hudson River School. His ouevre includes over 1,150 paintings, watercolors, and sketches. Inness's work incorporated scenes in America, especially New Jersey where he lived, as well as images from his travels in Europe, particularly in France and Italy. In fact, Inness was a regular traveler and moved throughout the United States, depicting his travels in his paintings, until he settled in Montclair, New Jersey in 1885. Most of his later work was created here, including Montclair Meadows, which was painted in 1981. Two catalogue raisonnes of Inness's art have been published and Montclair Meadows only appears in the catalogue by Leroy Ireland. However, both catalogues list several works for which images do not exist, although none of these are titled Montclair Meadows. This is not entirely unusual as artworks are sometimes identified by multiple titles (see Audrey, the Shepherd Lass and Mrs. Philip Hale elsewhere in this exhibition).

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