Hare, Michael

Ralph Albert Blakelock was born in New York City in 1847. He studied art at the Free Academy and Cooper Union but did not graduate. He continued to develop his skills in landscape painting and held the first exhibition of his work at the National Academy of Design in 1868. He is considered a part of the Hudson River School, which consisted of painters that portrayed romantic landscapes in the eastern United States. Throughout his life, Blakelock suffered from melancholia and spent the years from 1899 until 1916 in an institution. After one of Blakelock's paintings sold at public auction for $30,000, the popularity of his work increased and many forgeries of his work were created. Blakelock died at age 72 in 1919.