Robert Swain Gifford was one of America's prominent landscape and marine painters. He traveled extensively in the 1860's throughout the West seeking interesting landscapes for his painting. At this time, he supported himself by doing book illustrations, including Picturesque America, edited by William Cullen Bryant and published by D. Appleton and Company in 1872. Later travels in his career took him to North Africa and Europe. He was accepted into the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers of London, and back home in New York, he taught art at the Cooper Union.