Edward Moran

(American, born England, 1829–1901)

Born in England, Edward Moran is best known for his marine paintings and is credited with introducing the Moran family into the American art world. His family immigrated from Lancashire, England, to Maryland in 1844. One of twelve children, Moran left home at a young age to work in a cotton factory in Philadelphia, where his talent for large-scale drawing was noticed and encouraged.

Moran studied and shared a studio with his brother in Philadelphia before both returned to England, where copying the works of J. M. W. Turner had a lasting influence on their artistic development. In the mid-1850s, during the height of clipper ship production in Philadelphia, Moran was further influenced by marine painter James Hamilton and landscapist Paul Weber, influences evident in works such as New Castle on the Delaware.

Known for his silvery tonalities and loose accents of light, Moran developed a style rooted in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English painting and Dutch marine traditions. While he also painted historical subjects, seascapes were his greatest strength. His expertise was widely recognized, and his Hints for Practical Study of Marine Painting was published in Art Amateur in 1888.

Edward Moran was the father of genre painter Percy (Edward Percy) Moran and the brother of Thomas Moran. Though often overshadowed by his more famous sibling, Edward was regarded at the time of his death in 1901 as having no equal in marine painting in America.