Norton Bush
 Known primarily for his tropical views of South and Central America, Norton Bush was also one of the West Coast’s earliest Caucasian landscape painters and likely the first in California. Later in life, he was active in San Francisco Art Association.
Bush was born in Rochester, New York in 1834 and took his first art instruction from Jasper Cropsend associated with Frederick Church, both Hudson Rive School painters whose style continued to influence Bush. Many of his paintings were done with the goal of inspiring the viewer with the overwhelming aspect of nature and the diminished relative position of human beings.
Bush first went to California in 1853, traveling through the Isthmus of Panama, and arrived in San Francisco where he became well known for his landscapes, often painting in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. His patron was San Francisco banker, William C. Ralston, for whom he painted scenes related to Ralston’s business interests in Central America and traveled to that area three times. His paintings included scenes of the railroad Henery Meiggs had built in the Andes. His later seascapes were much less popular. He died in Oakland, California in 1894.
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