Artist. He learned engraving from his father, and for a while earned his living as an engraver of bank notes. He did serious study of landscape painting in Europe between 1840 and 1847, when he returned to New York and established his studio. He traveled often to the American west and to Europe. He shared a house with fellow artist Vincent Colyer on Contentment Island in Long Island Sound near Darien, Connecticut. He became associated with the Hudson River School and was noted for landscapes of upstate New York and New England and seascapes of the northeastern coast of the United States. He belongs to a subset of the Hudson river artists called “luminists” by virtue of his skill with light. He was a founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. His works are in the collections of the Met, the Brooklyn Museum, and the National Gallery of Art. It is thought that his death from pneumonia was the result of his attempt to save the life of his friend Colyer’s wife, whose horse had bolted on a causeway and thrown her into Long Island Sound. Mrs. Colyer died at the scene of the accident, and Kensett died 6 weeks later in his New York studio. (bio by: Bob Collins)