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Jasper Francis Cropsey
(1823-1900)
Jasper Cropsey was born on his father's farm in Rossville, Staten
Island on February 18, 1823. As a young boy, Cropsey had recurring
periods of poor health. During these periods, while absent from school,
Cropsey taught himself to draw. His early drawings were architectural
sketches and landscapes drawn on notepads and in the margins of his
schoolbooks.
His artistic skills improved rapidly as Jasper mimicked whatever paintings,
drawings, and architectural renderings he could find. At the age of
fourteen, Cropsey entered an architectural model in a contest and won
a diploma from the 1837 Mechanics Institute of New York fair. Soon
Jasper Cropsey began a five-year apprenticeship for Joseph Trench,
architect. Trench realized young Jasper's artistic ability and provided
him with studio space and art supplies in order to develop his artistic
skills. Jasper took advantage of Trench's encouragement and sketched
and painted whenever he could. Cropsey mostly painted landscapes, copied
from engravings of Claude Lorrain and other landscape artists.
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