An important painter of the Hudson River School, Thomas Worthington Whittrege was born on his family's farm near Springfield, Ohio. Originally trained as a house and sign painter in Cincinnati, he soon turned to the more refined art of portraiture and landscape, exhibiting for the first time at the Cincinnati Academy of Fine Arts in 1839. Ten years later he sailed for Europe with commissions from several Cincinnati patrons. Arriving first in London, he traveled through Belgium and Germany, stopping in Paris before settling in Dusseldorf. Whittredge studied at the Dusseldorf Art Academy under Andreas Aschenbach, coming to know many of the influential artists who taught and studied there. He developed friendships with Emmanuel Leutze and Albert Bierstadt among others. He traveled to Italy in 1856, sketching along the way with Sanford Robinson Gifford and William Stanley Haseltine. By early 1857 he was living in Rome with Gifford and Bierstadt, and spent the following summer sketching in the Alban and Sabine Hills of Campagna with the two artists.

When Whittredge returned to New York City in 1859 he took studio space in the Tenth Street Studio Building, alongside his friends Thomas Buchanan Read, William Holbrook Beard, Sanford Robinson Gifford, William Stanley Haseltine, and Albert Bierstadt. He became aquainted with the leading members of the Hudson River School including John F. Kensett, Frederick Church, John Casilear, Jervis McEntee, and Aaron Draper Shattuck.

In 1860, Whittredge was elected to the National Academy of Design as an associate, becoming a full member two years later. When he was invited to join an expedition led by General John Pope touring Colorado and New Mexico in 1866, he produced what many believe to be his most desirable paintings. Two years later, on an expedition to Colorado and Wyoming, accompanied by Gifford and Kensett, his works were met with such success that he went West again in 1871, revisiting the Platte River region of Colorado. Back East, he continued to paint the Catskills, the Upper Delaware River and the Rhode Island coast, where he enjoyed spending summers. In 1880 he moved into his home, Hillcrest, in Summit, New Jersey.

Our painting, Wooded Interior is a beautiful example of this painter's sensitivity, virtuosity and painterly brushstrokes. Whittredge depicts a late autumn day in a silent forest, the early afternoon sun warming the birch tree in the foreground, dappling the forest floor. He leads the viewer into the scene through the vertical rhythm of tree trunks which recede into the background. He affords his viewer the preciousness of a moment surrounded by natural beauty, and the privelege of enjoying it alone.

Worthington Whittrege was an associate member of the National Academy of Design, a National Academician, serving as president between 1874 and 1877, and a member of the Century Association. He exhibited widely during his lifetime, including the Art Institute of Chicago; the National Academy of Design (winning first prize in 1883); American Art Union; Paris Exposition (prize, 1889); Pan American Exposition, Buffalo (silver medal); St Louis Exposition (1904, medal); and an important solo exhibition at the Century Association of 125 paintings.

His works are included in some of the country's most prestigious collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC; and the Brooklyn Museum of Art.