In November 1883, artists Thomas Moran (1837–1926) and his wife, Mary Nimmo Moran (1842–1899), purchased a plot of land for $1,500 on East Hampton, Long Island.[1] The couple first visited the town in 1878; thereafter, they rented cottages for the summer until 1883–84, when they built their own home and studio.[2] According to art historian Linda C. Hults, the couple’s visits to and eventual residence in East Hampton were an important component of their successful etching careers.[3] Their accomplishments as partners in art, however, began earlier; indeed, soon after they married.

Moran began courting Mary Nimmo when she was sixteen. She lived in Crescentville, Pennsylvania, where she had immigrated from Scotland in 1852 with her father Archibald Nimmo and her brother, Archibald Jr. Her mother died before the family came to the United States, so Mary often found herself on her own as her father and brother worked in the textile mills of nearby Philadelphia. We know little of Mary’s early years in the United States or the period when Thomas courted her, but certainly she learned about his artistic aspirations and his large family, which included several artists. Thomas and Mary were engaged a few years after they met and married on February 9, 1863.[3] They moved into the Moran family home, where they would remain for the next five years.

Mary now lived in a busy household where artists came and went from their studios and artistic production was an everyday part of life. The year before Thomas and Mary wed, his older sister Elizabeth married the painter Stephen J. Ferris, with whom Thomas shared a studio. Elizabeth and Ferris lived in the Moran home until 1870. The household also included Thomas’s brother Peter, who was establishing himself as a lithographer and painter, and his brother John, who was a photographer. Both Peter and John married in 1867, and their wives joined them in the family home—Peter’s wife, painter-etcher Emily Kelley, added another artist to the household. Although the oldest brother, the painter Edward Moran, did not live at home, he had a studio nearby that he often shared with his younger brothers.[5] It is not surprising that in a home filled with artists, Mary soon became interested in creating art herself, and she began to draw and paint. She first exhibited one of her paintings at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1869, where her husband and his brothers also presented their work.[6]

Mary always stated that her husband was her teacher,[7] but there were other members of the Moran family who could help educate and encourage her. Except for a year abroad from 1866 to 1867, when the couple traveled to England, France, and Italy to further their artistic education,[8] they remained in the family home until 1868.[9] In addition to the financial advantages of living with the Morans, the creative camaraderie enjoyed by the family probably became a firm foundation for the couple’s partnership in art.

The couple stayed in their own Philadelphia home for four years before they moved to Newark, New Jersey, to be closer to the art and publishing world of New York City. Thomas was often away on sketching trips to fulfill commissions during those years.[10] So numerous were his commissions and so prolific his output that scholars speculate Mary probably assisted him with his illustrative work, although she did not always receive credit.[11] The couple would also sometimes travel and sketch together. Mary accompanied Thomas to California’s Yosemite Valley in 1872 and to Florida in 1877, 1887, and 1891.[12] The couple took another European trip to England, Scotland, and Wales in 1882.[13]

During one of Thomas’s sketching trips in 1879,[14] Mary remained at home and began etching, a medium both she and her husband pursued throughout the 1880s. The couple’s depictions of the same locales in their etched works provide insights into the creative mind, and how two artists can portray the same place yet choose to focus on distinct features. Some of the couple’s most important works representing the same settings were their images of East Hampton.[15]

For more on the locales that featured prominently in their lives, their work, and their artistic collaborations, click on any of the images below. For more about the couple’s extended family, see the essay The Family Moran.

—Sandra Pauly, Henry Luce Foundation Curatorial Scholar for Moran Collection Research, 2021

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[1] Vittoria, “Nature and Nostalgia in the Art of Mary Nimmo Moran,” 202.

[2] Morand and Friese, Prints of Nature, 7. Thomas Moran hired Stafford Tillinghast to design and build the home and studio. Some materials used, including the interior staircase, the windows, and the leaded-glass panels for the front door, came from razed New York City buildings. See Woodward, East Hampton, 174; and Hefner, East Hampton’s Heritage, 64–65, 164.

[3] Hults, “Thomas Moran and the Landscape Print,” 31.

[4] Wilkins, Thomas Moran: Artist of the Mountains, 47–50, 325n55.

[5] Wright, Domestic and Wild, 1:6–7, 15, 21n65, 164, 168–69.

[6] Vittoria, “Nature and Nostalgia in the Art of Mary Nimmo Moran,” 3–4, 93–96.

[7] Wilkins, Thomas Moran: Artist of the Mountains, 50.

[8] Wilkins, Thomas Moran: Artist of the Mountains, 55–58

[9] Wright, Domestic and Wild, 1:6, 15.

[10] Wilkins, Thomas Moran: Artist of the Mountains, 112–13.

[11] Morand and Friese, Prints of Nature, 23; Peet, American Women of the Etching Revival, 31–32; and Vittoria, “Nature and Nostalgia in the Art of Mary Nimmo Moran,” 71–72, 277. In 1873, Mary received a letter from Thomas admonishing her to work on her drawing skills while he was away, as he needed drawings for his commercial work, with which she could assist.

[12] Wilkins, Thomas Moran: Artist of the Mountains, 152–58. The couple made trips to other locations that Nimmo Moran did not portray, including Madison, Wisconsin, in 1876; Virginia in 1881; and Venice in 1890. Wilkins, Thomas Moran: Artist of the Mountains, 149, 205, 208.

[13] Wilkins, Thomas Moran: Artist of the Mountains, 222–31.

[14] Vittoria, “Nature and Nostalgia in the Art of Mary Nimmo Moran,” 160–61. His brother Peter accompanied Thomas on the excursion. This left Peter’s wife, the etcher Emily Kelley, on her own that summer as well. Vittoria speculates Emily Kelley may have provided her sister-in-law, Mary Nimmo, with instructions on etching.

[15] Hults, “Thomas Moran and the Landscape Print,” 31.