Henry H. Cross Paintings

It was Henry Cross's portraits of horses belonging to the prominent breeders and trainers of the second half of the nineteenth century that won the artist renown as an animal painter. Born and raised in upstate New York, Cross's proficiency in both drafting and caricature was revealed while he was still a student at the Binghamton Academy, New York. In 1852, when he was only fifteen years old, Cross joined a traveling circus that took him to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and to the first of many Indian encampments that he would draw upon for subject matter throughout his career. Biographers differ as to the year Cross left for Europe, however, he was in Paris from 1852 to 1853 or 1854, where he studied with Rosa Bonheur, a highly esteemed French painter of horses. Upon Cross's return to the United States he was commissioned to paint the studs of wealthy horsemen, including those of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, Robert Bonner, the owner-publisher of The New York Ledger, and "Copper King" Marcus Daly, whose 18,000 acre stock farm was reputed to be the greatest and most valuable horse ranch in the world. Although Cross received the highest pay of any equine artist of his day (up to $35,000. for one order, according to The Horse Review of April 10, 1918, p. 328), he frequently joined traveling circuses and painted the locales where they visited. He also painted portraits of notable contemporaries, such as President Abraham Lincoln, ex-president Ulysses S. Grant, King Edward VII of England, W. F. "Buffalo Bill...