Shannon Vittoria

This dissertation is the first comprehensive study dedicated to the work of American painter-etcher Mary Nimmo Moran (1842-1899), an innovative printmaker and influential interpreter of the American landscape. She began her career in 1863, studying under her husband, artist Thomas Moran (1837-1926). Although she exhibited oil and watercolor paintings in the 1860s and 1870s, she is best known for her landscape etchings, a medium she pursued beginning in 1879. In the two decades that followed, she produced an extensive oeuvre of romantic and expressively etched views of nature, nostalgically preserving the landscape of America’s eastern seaboard. Her inventive approach to printmaking placed her at the forefront of the American etching revival, as her works embody the expressive potential of original etching. This project reveals the breadth of Nimmo Moran’s artistic achievements, demonstrating her contributions to the development of American printmaking and the history of American landscape art.