Thomas Hovenden (December 28, 1840 – August 14, 1895) was an Irish artist and teacher who spent much of his life in the United States.

He married Helen Corson in 1881, an artist he had met in Pont-Aven, and settled at her father's homestead in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia.

[1] In 1886, he was appointed Professor of Painting and Drawing at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, replacing Thomas Eakins who was dismissed due to his use of nude models.

Among Hovenden's students were the sculptor Alexander Stirling Calder and the leader of the Ashcan School, Robert Henri.

Hovenden was killed at the age of 54, along with a ten-year-old girl, by a railroad locomotive at a crossing near his home in Plymouth Meeting.

[8] However, he has also been accused of portraying African Americans from a superior point-of-view, the images showing people content in their poverty.