Kentucky Collection

ALEXANDER HELWIG WYANT
(American, 1836-1892)

Falls of the Ohio, Louisville, 1863
Oil on canvas
Gift of Mrs. Lewis C. Humphrey in memory of her grandfather, William Burke Belknap 1948.33

Ohio-born painter Alexander Helwig Wyant worked as a sign painter in the 1850s while honing his skills as a landscape artist. By 1854, he was working as an itinerant painter of topographical scenery along the banks of the Ohio River. In 1857 Wyant saw the oil paintings of George Inness in Cincinnati, an event that changed the course of his career. Inspired by the Hudson River School style of Inness’s landscape paintings at this time, Wyant traveled to New York City to meet this influential artist. It was through Inness that Wyant gained the patronage of Cincinnati art collector Nicholas Longworth, grandfather of Maria Longworth, who later founded the famed Rookwood Pottery.

Originally named “The Falls of the Ohio” for the nearby rapids on the Ohio River, Louisville was a highly industrialized city when this canvas was painted, as the smokestacks rising in the distance illustrate. Urban views were popular landscape subjects in the mid- to late nineteenth century among citizens who were proud of their town’s growth and development. Businessman William Burke Belknap allegedly commissioned this painting when Wyant visited Louisville.