Theodore Robinson (Born 1852 – Died 1896) was born in Irasburg, Vermont. Considered the first American impressionist for a long time, Robinson spent most of his childhood in the rural Midwest, specifically Wisconsin. They moved to Wisconsin when he was still and young boy, and he studied art in Chicago. Later on, he moved to NYC and he studied at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design. At the age of 24 years, he traveled to Paris where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts under Carolus-Duran. He studied with Jean-Léon Gérome. Robinson held the first exhibition of his paintings in 1877 in Paris. After trips to Bologna and Venice, he returned to the U.S. in 1879 and stayed there for several years.
During which time, he painted in a realist manner, often depicting people engaged in quiet agrarian or domestic pursuits, in a loosely brushed but not yet impressionistic style. Robinson moved to Venice in the fall of 1879; here he was befriended by James McNeill Whistler Abbott, an American expatriate artist, who had a great influence on him. By 1884 he had earned enough money to return to France. Robinson was also able to travel to surrounding artistic sites including Dieppe and Barbizon, and to go to Holland. Three years later, he began his sojourns in a village on the Seine called Giverny, where Monet Claude had established his studio and home, and he returned to that village every summer and spring for the next 5 years.
