Joseph Antonio Hekking (American, 1830-1903) Hudson River School Landscape

Joseph Antonio Hekking (American, 1830-1903)
Joseph Antonio Hekking was a landscape and marine painter. He studied in Paris and was a talented draftsman. As early as 1859 he exhibited paintings of the Adirondacks at the National Academy of Design (NYC). He served in the Civil War with a New York regiment and exhibited in the Detroit area after the war. In 1861, Hekking was such a good landscape painter he taught painting at the Cherry Valley Female Academy. He was a versatile and talented painter who was active from the early 1850s to the later 1870s and he participated in major exhibitions. His paintings were inspired by visits to the Adirondacks and White Mountains, where Two Figures on a Bridge Against a Sunset Sky was painted. He is considered an important and relevant early American landscape painter who was intimately connected to the Hudson River School.