Harvey Otis Young was born in Lyndon, Vermont on November 23, 1840. He was educated there at St Johnsbury Academy and, as a teenager, worked as an ornamental painter decorating scales. In 1859 he sailed from New York City via Panama to San Francisco in search of gold. When not panning for gold in the Salmon River area, he made many sketches which often included a burro, his constant companion in his mining ventures. He served a short time in the Civil War in the Federal Cavalry and was stationed at Walla Walla with Bret Harte, the author. By 1866 Young had returned to San Francisco where he established a studio at 314 Sutter Street and began exhibiting locally. During the 1870s he made several trips to Europe to study art in Munich and at Académie Julian in Paris. Upon returning to the United States in 1879, he settled in Colorado as a resident of Manitou Springs, Aspen, and Denver. During this time he sketched throughout the West, but in the 1880s he deserted art for a number of years while he made and lost a fortune in mining. For a time the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad provided him with a studio car from which he painted scenes along its route for the company's advertising brochures. Young is best known for his Rocky Mountain landscapes and mining scenes in oil and watercolor. The last three years of his life were spent as a resident of Colorado Springs where he died on May 13, 1901. He is sometimes listed as Harvey B. Young due to a mix up in family records. Member: Denver Art A. (cofounder, 1893). Exhibited: Mechanics' Institute (San Francisco), 1868, 1875, 1876, 1878; Snow & Roos Gallery (San Francisco) 1869, 1877; Industrial Expo (Chicago), 1875; Paris Salon; 1878; National Academy of Design, 1879; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, 1879. Works held: Oakland Museum; Denver Museum; Orange County (CA) Museum; Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, DC); Copley Library (La Jolla); Colorado College (Colorado Springs); Bancroft Library (UC Berkeley); Denver Public Library; Penrose Library (Colorado Springs).