The Lone Scout

Albert Pinkham Ryder

American

The eccentric artist Albert Pinkham Ryder stylistically bridged the 19th and 20th centuries. He moved from Massachusetts to New York City in 1870, where he mainly painted seascapes and other images with mystical associations. His paintings do not present nature or real-life experiences. Instead, they show his inner visions and psychological turmoil. Ryder was admired by the first generation of American modernists, who welcomed him into the 1913 Armory Show as a likeminded artist.

Born
1847
Died
1917
The Lone Scout by Albert Pinkham Ryder

Can you paint images from your imagination?

Ryder’s 1882 visit to Tangier, Morocco, may have inspired this image of a solitary scout, dressed in a white cloak and holding a rifle at the ready. Typical of the artist’s visionary style, the horseman appears like a mirage coming out of a heat-seared desert landscape. This Orientalist subject may have been inspired by the earlier French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix, whose similar paintings were exhibited by Ryder’s New York art dealer.

Medium
Oil on canvas
Credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd

Item ID
1979.7.88
Dimensions
13 x 10 in. (33 x 25.4 cm)
Date
ca. 1882
Country
Artist name
Albert Pinkham Ryder
Artwork location