Setting Full Sail Toward the 20th Century

In the late 1930s the New York art dealers Albert Duveen and Norman Hirschl started turning up some intriguing paintings in upstate New York. These works depicted conventional subjects of 19th-century American painting — Hudson River landscapes and marine views of ships, harbors and naval battles — but in an entrancing, slightly demonic style unlike anything the dealers had seen before.

Hudson River in the Pioneer Valley

Thomas Locker’s outlook on life changed when he died. After being pronounced dead from a dissecting aneurysm, a nearly always fatal affliction, he came back to life and lingered in a coma for 17 days. He eventually recovered, and has since resumed his lifelong work: painting.