John Robinson Tait (January 14, 1834 – July 29, 1909) was an American landscape painter, art critic, and travel writer.

[1] He received his higher education at Bethany College, where he published a student magazine called The Stylus.

During his stay, he met Emmanuel Leutze and his student, fellow American William Washington, who encouraged Tait to study there.

In 1855, he returned to the United States in the company of his childhood friend, Thomas Buchanan Read, whom he had met in Florence.

He took two trips to the United States during this time, in 1866 and the early 1870s, where he exhibited at the "Cincinnati Industrial Exposition" of 1871 and was awarded first prize.