A prolific painter all his life, Charles Courtney Curran was among the artists responsible for the rebirth of the genre tradition in late nineteenth-century American art.

Born in Hartford, KY, Curran spent his formative years in Sandusky, Ohio, where his family had moved in 1881. He studied briefly at the Cincinnati School of Design. The following year, Curran moved to New York City. There he enrolled in the National Academy of Design, worked under the tutelage of Walter Satterlee, and later attended the Art Student’s League. He had his first exhibit at the National Academy at age 23. Curran’s two years of study at the Academie Julien in Paris, from 1889 to 1891, likely influenced the impressionistic use of form and light in his subsequent works.

He spent the remainder of his life dividing his time between New York City and his house and studio in the Cragsmoor region of New York State.