Peter Moran

born Bolton, England, 1841; died Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1914

BiographyBorn in Bolton, England, Peter was the youngest of the four Moran brothers and was only three years old when his family moved to Philadelphia in 1844. He was apprenticed to the lithographers Herline and Hersel before leaving to study with his artist brothers Thomas and Edward. He then traveled to England and briefly studied with animal painter Edwin Landseer, but left because he was disappointed in Landseer’s work. In 1864, seven years before his more famous brother Thomas’s first trip to Yellowstone, Peter traveled to New Mexico. He visited again when he joined Captain Bourke on his ethnographic trip to the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest in 1881. In addition, he was a government agent and illustrated the census report Indians Taxed and Indians Not Taxed concerning the Shoshone Agency in Wyoming in 1890. Peter painted in watercolor and oil and made etchings, preferring animal subjects to landscapes. French painter Rosa Bonheur was a strong influence on his work.

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