Norton Bush
1834 – 1894
BORN IN
Rochester, New York
KNOWN FOR
Tropical landscapes, mountains, portraits
Norton Bush took his first art instruction from James Harris, a local artist. He also studied with Jasper Cropsey in New York City and associated with Frederic Church, both Hudson River School painters whose style continued to influence Bush. Many of his paintings were done with the goal of inspiring the viewer with the overwhelming aspects of nature and the diminished relative position of human beings.
In 1853, when Bush first traveled to California, he traveled through the Isthmus of Panama and reportedly through the jungles of Nicaragua. From 1878 to 1880, Bush was the Director of the San Francisco Art Association. He also became art director of the California section of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.
