Thomas Addison Richards was one of the founders of the antebellum Southern landscape tradition. His landscapes of Georgia and the Carolinas demonstrate a style and sensibility that connect European landscapes to American practitioners of the Hudson River School and Southern romantic painters. Born in Great Britain in 1820, he immigrated with his family to the United States in 1831. He and his brother, William Cary Richards, moved to Penfield, Georgia, where they started a publishing business. Among the illustrated works they published were "Tallulah and Jocassee" (1852) and "The Romance of Southern Landscape" (1855). Thomas Addison Richards painted Southern landscapes primarily in Georgia and South Carolina but he also kept close ties to New York and New England publishing. He was corresponding secretary of the National Academy of Design from 1852 to 1892 and a prominent illustrator for "Harper's New Monthly" Magazine, other national periodicals, and numerous art and travel books.

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