Influenced by European painters, but with a strong American sensibility,[3] he was prolific throughout his career and worked primarily with oil on canvas.

His paintings are typically allegoric and often depict small figures or structures set against moody and evocative natural landscapes.

They are usually escapist, framing the New World as a natural eden contrasting with the smog-filled cityscapes of Industrial Revolution-era Britain, in which he grew up.

[3] Born in Bolton le Moors, Lancashire, in 1801,[6] Cole immigrated with his family to the United States in 1818, settling in Steubenville, Ohio.

[8] In New York, Cole sold three paintings to George W. Bruen,[9] who subsequently financed a summer trip to the Hudson Valley where the artist produced landscapes featuring the Catskill Mountain House, the famous Kaaterskill Falls, the ruins of Fort Putnam, and two views of Cold Spring.

Published in the 1830 volume, contemporary critic John Neal called Chocurua's Curse "beautifully contrived".

There are two versions of the latter, the 1840 original at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York and the 1842 replicas with minor alterations at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

[13] He also painted The Garden of Eden (1828), with lavish detail of Adam and Eve living amid waterfalls, vivid plants, and deer.

[15] Cole influenced his peers in the art movement later termed the Hudson River School, especially Asher B. Durand and Frederic Edwin Church.

In 1842, Cole embarked on a Grand Tour of Europe in an effort to study in the style of the Old Masters and to paint its scenery.