Landscape Scene Near Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Hudson River School painter DeWitt Clinton Boutelle, who was most likely named after New York mayor DeWitt Clinton (1769 – 1828), was largely a self-taught, itinerant landscape and portrait painter. He was born in scenic Troy, New York, and later lived in New York City, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He was deeply influenced early in his life by prominent artists Thomas Cole and Asher Durand, and actually created a full-sized copy of Cole’s Voyage of Life series in 1863.

By the time Boutelle turned twenty, his paintings were celebrated, particularly his views of Niagara Falls, and shown at the National Academy of Design, where he was elected an Associate in 1851. He also exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Brooklyn Art Association, the Boston Athenaeum, the Washington Art Association, and the American Art-Union.