One of the few mid-nineteenth-century painters to pursue a dual career in art and business, Francis Edmonds managed to become an influential figure in the interrelated spheres of banking, politics, and culture in New York City. Edmonds was born in 1806 into a large family in Hudson, New York, where he received a Quaker education and early artistic...

Henry Inman's father was an English-born brewer who settled near Utica, New York, and it was there that the future artist was born in 1801, raised, and educated. Aside from primary schooling, Inman also received some artistic instruction in his native town from an itinerant portrait painter. After the family moved to New York City in 1812, he...