Ralph Wormeley Curtis

Ralph Wormeley Curtis (August 28, 1854 – February 4, 1922) was an American painter and graphic artist in the Impressionist style. He spent most of his life in Europe, where he was a close associate of his distant cousin, John Singer Sargent, and James McNeill Whistler. He painted in a variety of genres, but was known mostly for landscapes and urban scenes; especially of Venice. Early life Curtis was born in Boston on August 28, 1854. His father was the prominent lawyer and banker, Daniel Sargent Curtis and his mother was Ariana Randolph Wormeley (1834-1922), a sister of Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer, both descendants of John Randolph (1727–1784). His maternal grandfather, Ralph Randolph Wormeley, born in Virginia to loyalist parents, was raised in London and joined the Royal Navy, rising to the rank of admiral, while his grandmother, Caroline Preble, was from a venerable Boston family. His mother was therefore born and raised in London and returned to the United States in 1848.