Skip to main content

George Inness Art

American, 1825-1894

George Inness, one of America's foremost landscape painters of the late 19th century, was born in 1825 near Newburgh, New York. He spent most of his childhood in Newark, New Jersey. He was apprenticed to an engraving firm until 1843 when he studied art in New York with Regis Gignoux, a landscape painter from whom he learned the classical styles and techniques of the Old Masters. In 1851, sponsored by a patron, Inness made a 15-month trip to Italy. In 1853, he traveled to France, where he discovered Barbizon landscape painting, leading him to adopt style that used looser, sketchier brushwork and more open compositions, emphaa sizing the expressive qualities of nature. After working in New York from 1854–59, he moved to Medfield, Massachusetts, and four years later to New Jersey, where through a fellow painter he began to experiment with using glazes that would allow him to fill his compositions with subtle effects of light. Duncan Phillips remarked on Inness’s mellow light as a unifying force, saying, “…he was equipped to modernize the grand manner of Claude and to apply the methods of Barbizon to American subjects." At this time also, Inness developed an interest in the religious theories of Emanuel Swedenborg, an 18th-century theologian who believed that all material things were imbued with spiritual presence and who proposed a philosophy in which earthly and heavenly realms are united. Inness's paintings throughout the decade of the 1860s showed sweeping, panoramic views of the Catskills, the Delaware Valley, or the New Jersey countryside. Despite their varying locales, these scenes share a spiritual expressiveness in the portrayal of nature’s moods, for example, dramatic effects of weather and atmosphere. In Inness’s mature paintings, the forms of the landscape become indistinct, hazy, abstracted, suggesting an existence in both material and immaterial worlds. Inness moved back to New York in 1867 and in 1868 was elected to full membership in the National Academy of Design, but being an inveterate traveler, he returned to Europe in 1870, living in Rome from 1871–75. Two years later he returned to New York, where he helped found the Society of American Artists. In 1878, he settled in Montclair, New Jersey, but continued to travel and paint misty, poetic, and evocative landscapes. Over the years, he went to a variety of locations in the eastern and southern United States, and to Cuba, California and Mexico. After 1880, his late synthetic landscapes were purely conceptual, made in a studio practice that relied on the memory of actual places but was fundamentally an embodiment in paint of the artist’s deepest feelings. With these dematerialized landscapes, attuned to the Transcendentalists, Inness pioneered an essential conceptualist art, one that would find echoes in the works of the Abstract Expressionists and Color Field painters of the 20th century. In 1894, Inness made his last trip abroad, visiting France, Germany, and Scotland, where he died. A public funeral was held in New York at the National Academy, which also held a large exhibition of his paintings that same year.

to
1
1
2
Overall Width
to
Overall Height
to
4
1
4
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
4
4
3
3
4
10,158
2,805
2,503
1,396
4
4
Artist: George Inness
Afternoon - American Landscape Painting, 1846
Afternoon - American Landscape Painting, 1846

Afternoon - American Landscape Painting, 1846

By George Inness

Located in Palm Desert, CA

Afternoon is a rare early painting by George Inness, created when the artist was only twenty one and actively shaping the foundations of his career. Although largely self-taught, Inn...

Category

Mid-19th Century Abstract Impressionist George Inness Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Coming Storm, 1864
Coming Storm, 1864

Coming Storm, 1864

By George Inness

Located in New York, NY

George Inness, considered among the foremost American landscape painters of the 19th century, developed a distinctive style blending elements of the Hudson River and Barbizon schools...

Category

19th Century George Inness Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"A Cloudy Day, " View of Montclair, New Jersey, Tonalist, Barbizon Scene
"A Cloudy Day, " View of Montclair, New Jersey, Tonalist, Barbizon Scene

"A Cloudy Day, " View of Montclair, New Jersey, Tonalist, Barbizon Scene

By George Inness

Located in New York, NY

George Inness (1825 - 1894) A Cloudy Day, 1886 Oil on canvas 25 x 30 inches Signed and dated lower center Provenance: The artist Estate of the above Fifth Avenue Galleries, New York, Executor's Sale of Paintings by the Late George Inness, N.A., February 12 - 14, 1895, Lot 132 Joseph H. Spafford, acquired from the above Mrs. Spafford, by bequest from the above Leroy Ireland, New York, 1951 Ernest Closuit, Fort Worth, Texas Meredith Long & Company, Houston, Texas, circa 1960 Private Collection Shannon's Fine Art, American and European Fine Art Auction, October 27, 2016, Lot 42 Exhibited: New York, American Fine Arts Society, Exhibition of the Paintings Left by the Late George Inness, December 27, 1894, no. 90.  Literature: LeRoy Ireland, The Works of George Inness: An Illustrated Catalogue Raisonne, Austin, Texas, 1965, p. 336, no. 1324, illustrated. Michael Quick, "George Inness: A Catalogue Raisonne," Vol. II, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 2007, pp. 282-83, 311, no. 966, illustrated.  George Inness, one of America's foremost landscape painters of the late nineteenth century, was born in 1825 near Newburgh, New York. He spent most of his childhood in Newark, New Jersey. He was apprenticed to an engraving firm until 1843, when he studied art in New York with Regis Gignoux, a landscape painter from whom he learned the classical styles and techniques of the Old Masters. In 1851, sponsored by a patron, Inness made a fifteen-month trip to Italy. In 1853 he traveled to France, where he discovered Barbizon landscape painting, leading him to adopt a style that used looser, sketchier brushwork and more open compositions, emphasizing the expressive qualities of nature. After working in New York from 1854 to 1859, he moved to Medfield, Massachusetts, and four years later to New Jersey, where through a fellow painter he began to experiment with using glazes that would allow him to fill his compositions with subtle effects of light. Duncan Phillips remarked on Inness’s mellow light as a unifying force, saying, “…he was equipped to modernize the grand manner of Claude and to apply the methods of Barbizon to American subjects." At this time also, Inness developed an interest in the religious theories of Emanuel Swedenborg...

Category

1880s Hudson River School George Inness Art

Materials

Canvas, Paint, Oil

Related Items
Late 19th Century Tonalist Landscape with Oak Trees
Late 19th Century Tonalist Landscape with Oak Trees

Late 19th Century Tonalist Landscape with Oak Trees

By Willard LeRoy Metcalf

Located in Soquel, CA

Gorgeous late 19th century Tonalist landscape painting of foothills and oak trees in the style of Willard Leroy Metcalf circa 1900. Inscribed "M" in circle monogram lower left corner and on frame verso. Presented in original rustic giltwood frame. Image size: 6"H x 8"W. Framed size: 8.5"H x 10.5"W. Tonalist are usually intimate works, painted with a limited palette. Tonalist paintings are softly expressive, suggestive rather than detailed, often depicting the landscape at twilight or evening, when there is an absence of contrast. Tonalist paintings could also be figurative, but in them, the figure was usually out of doors or in an interior in a low-key setting with little detail. Tonalism had its origins in the works of the French Barbizon school and in the works of American painters who were influenced by them. California Tonalism was born when the emphasis in California landscape painting passed from the grand landscapes of works like those of Thomas Hill and William Keith's early career, to more intimate views of a domesticated landscape. At the same time, the parallel Pictorialist Photography...

Category

1890s Tonalist George Inness Art

Materials

Oil, Cardboard

Setter Dogs/ Spaniels in Sporting Landscape Original Victorian English Dog Oil
Setter Dogs/ Spaniels in Sporting Landscape Original Victorian English Dog Oil

Setter Dogs/ Spaniels in Sporting Landscape Original Victorian English Dog Oil

By Robert Cleminson

Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire

"The Days Bag" by ROBERT CLEMINSON (British, 1864-1903) signed oil on canvas, framed framed: 24 x 32 inches canvas: 16 x 24 inches provenance: private co...

Category

Late 19th Century Victorian George Inness Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

"Landscape with Farm"

"Landscape with Farm"

By John Francis Murphy

Located in Lambertville, NJ

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: John Francis Murphy (1853 - 1921) John Francis Murphy is increasingly recognized today as one of the leading American Tona...

Category

1890s Tonalist George Inness Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Forgotten Landscape

Forgotten Landscape

Located in Greenwich, CT

Elizabeth Higgins Biography b. 1960 Elizabeth Higgins describes herself as an abstract figurative and landscape painter. Everything around her serves as a potential subject, an insp...

Category

2010s Abstract Impressionist George Inness Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Tonalist Painting Sunset Figures Wheat Barbizon Framed 19th Century Oil Painting
Tonalist Painting Sunset Figures Wheat Barbizon Framed 19th Century Oil Painting

Tonalist Painting Sunset Figures Wheat Barbizon Framed 19th Century Oil Painting

Located in Buffalo, NY

An antique oil painting in its original ornate gold leaf frame. This tonalist painting depicts figures against a dramatic sunset. The work is signed illegibly lower left. It ap...

Category

1860s Tonalist George Inness Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique French Impressionist Paris Street Scene Signed Nicely Framed Painting
Antique French Impressionist Paris Street Scene Signed Nicely Framed Painting

Antique French Impressionist Paris Street Scene Signed Nicely Framed Painting

Located in Buffalo, NY

Very finely painted early French impressionist street scene. Oil on canvas. Signed illegibly. Framed and ready to hang!

Category

1940s Impressionist George Inness Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Greek Ruins"

Franklin D. Briscoe"Greek Ruins"

$43,000

H 24 in W 36 in D 4 in

"Greek Ruins"

By Franklin D. Briscoe

Located in Lambertville, NJ

Signed Lower Right Known for his marine, history, and portrait paintings, Franklin Briscoe was born in Baltimore, Maryland and at age four moved with his family to Philadelphia where he later became a student of Edward Moran and where eventually he settled his studio. Briscoe made extended ocean voyages, including trips to Europe where he saw much painting in galleries, and from these adventures and observations developed his landmark paintings of the ocean and ships in all kinds of weather conditions. In 1885, he painted an historical mural that was in ten panels, a total of 230 feet long, and 13 feet tall--"The Battle of Gettysburg...

Category

19th Century Hudson River School George Inness Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Summer Day, American Impressionist, Coastal View, Seashore
Summer Day, American Impressionist, Coastal View, Seashore

Summer Day, American Impressionist, Coastal View, Seashore

Located in Wiscasset, ME

"Summer Day" exhibits many of the hallmarks of Impressionism: loose brushwork, a preoccupation with light, and a palpable sense of place -- elements which have doubtless contributed ...

Category

Early 20th Century American Impressionist George Inness Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Board

"An Old Clearing"

John Francis Murphy"An Old Clearing", 1919

$35,625

H 29 in W 23 in D 3 in

"An Old Clearing"

By John Francis Murphy

Located in Lambertville, NJ

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork. Signed and dated lower left. John Francis Murphy (1853 - 1921) John Francis Murphy is increasingly recognized today as one o...

Category

1910s Tonalist George Inness Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Summer on the Seine, Mid 20th Century Art Deco Oil
Summer on the Seine, Mid 20th Century Art Deco Oil

Summer on the Seine, Mid 20th Century Art Deco Oil

Located in London, GB

Norman Lloyd Australian 1897 - 1985 Summer on the Seine Oil on canvas, signed lower right Image size: 30 x 38 inches Hand made frame Norman Lloyd was born in 1895 near Newcastle, New South Wales, where he attended school. He left school in 1911 and started to work and study painting with Julian Ashton and James R. Jackson in Sydney. On his 21st birthday in 1916 he enlisted with the Australian Imperial Forces. He was transported to Europe where he was seriously wounded in battle a year later. After returning to Sydney in February 1918, he took up painting lessons at the Julian Ashton Art School again. From 1921 to 1926, Lloyd exhibited with galleries in Sydney and Melbourne, showing landscapes and Sydney harbour scenes painted in the more traditional style of his teachers. From 1926 to 1929, Norman Lloyd visited Europe and travelled widely in Italy and France, exhibiting in the UK, France and Australia, culminating in a solo exhibition at Macquarie Galleries in Sydney. In the 1930s, Lloyd migrated to London with his wife Edith for good, setting up a boarding house in upmarket St Johns Wood and establishing himself quickly in the new society, being a kind, generous and interested man with a broad horizon. His mansion became a meeting point and home for many Australian expats, among them painters Will...

Category

Mid-20th Century Art Deco George Inness Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Untitled
Untitled

Stan SpornyUntitled, unknown

$2,650

H 23 in W 23 in D 3 in

Untitled

Located in Berlin, MD

Stanley Sporny (American 1946 - 2008) A view into a stream with overhanging branches reflected in the water. A beautiful oil painting that explores the stream bottom as well as the ...

Category

Late 20th Century Abstract Impressionist George Inness Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Brittany Coastal Painting France by Modern French Impressionist Landscape Artist
Brittany Coastal Painting France by Modern French Impressionist Landscape Artist

Brittany Coastal Painting France by Modern French Impressionist Landscape Artist

By George Charles Robin

Located in Preston, GB

Brittany Coastal Painting France by Modern French Impressionist Landscape Artist. Douarnenez, Brittany, France, is a rare original Oil Painting by Award Winning French Post-Impressionist Artist, George Charles Robin. Art measures 21.5 x 18 inches Frame measures 27 x 23 inches (approx.) Born in Paris in 1903, Robin was a student of Paul Michel Dupuy...

Category

Mid-20th Century Post-Modern George Inness Art

Materials

Canvas, Paint, Cotton Canvas, Oil, Cotton, Linen

Previously Available Items
"Twilight In Venice"
"Twilight In Venice"

"Twilight In Venice"

By George Inness

Located in Lambertville, NJ

Signed and dated LR Born on a farm near Newburgh, New York, George Inness had post-Civil War recognition for paintings that were unique in structure and atmosphere and that turned away from the dramatic, panoramic Hudson River School of painting to a quieter, tonalist expression of poetry in nature. Among the Americans at Barbizon, France, he was the leading painter of that movement of early plein-air landscape painters. He spent his youth in Newark, New Jersey. His father, trying to discourage his obvious art talent, gave him at age 14 a grocery store to run. But in 1841, at age 16, George left for New York and worked for a map engraver. Impatient with supervision, he started to paint alone and exhibited with the National Academy in 1844. He studied briefly in Brooklyn with Regis Gignoux...

Category

19th Century Impressionist George Inness Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

George Inness art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic George Inness art available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by George Inness in oil paint, paint, canvas and more. Not every interior allows for large George Inness art, so small editions measuring 30 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of John MacDonald, Thomas Moran, and John Francis Murphy. George Inness art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $150,000 and tops out at $285,000, while the average work can sell for $217,500.

Artists Similar to George Inness