A versatile nineteenth-century painter, Edmund C. Coates created landscapes, seascapes, portraits, and history paintings. Born in England, Coates spent his adult life in New York City, where he was a frequent exhibitor at the National Academy of Design. Working in the style of the Hudson River School, Coates produced beautiful, idealized images of the lakes and mountains of the Hudson River Valley and the White Mountains of New Hampshire, as well as romantic visions of ancient Italian ruins. His work can be now seen in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Historical Society, the Addison Gallery of American Art, the Shelburne Museum, and the Yale University Art Gallery.