Leonard Ochtman was an American Impressionist painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 who specialized in landscapes. He was born in Zonnemaire

Zonnemaire

Zonnemaire is a village in the Dutch province of Zeeland. It is a part of the municipality of Schouwen-Duiveland, and lies about 19 km southwest of Hellevoetsluis.Zonnemaire was a separate municipality until 1961, when it was merged with Brouwershaven....

, Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 as the son of a decorative painter. His family moved to Albany, New York

Albany, New York

Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...

 in 1866. Starting at a young age, Ochtman worked as a draftsman at a wood-working firm in Albany. In 1879, Ochtman moved from Albany to New York City where he roomed with fellow painter, Charles Warren Eaton

Charles Warren Eaton

Charles Warren Eaton was an American artist best known for his tonalist landscapes. He earned the nickname "the pine tree painter" for his numerous depictions of Eastern White Pine trees....

.

In New York City, Ochtman worked with a group of artists who were important in the development of the impressionist movement

Impressionism

Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. For several years Ochtman's studio in New York City was located in the same building as that of George Inness

George Inness

George Inness was an American landscape painter; born in Newburgh, New York; died at Bridge of Allan in Scotland. His work was influenced, in turn, by that of the old masters, the Hudson River school, the Barbizon school, and, finally, by the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg, whose spiritualism...

, the dean of the Tonalist movement, and the two painters admired each others' work. In 1882 he began to exhibit landscapes at the National Academy of Design

National Academy of Design

The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...

, and he became a National Academician in 1904. His most characteristic pictures are scenes on Long Island Sound

Long Island Sound

Long Island Sound is an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean, located in the United States between Connecticut to the north and Long Island, New York to the south. The mouth of the Connecticut River at Old Saybrook, Connecticut, empties into the sound. On its western end the sound is bounded by the Bronx...

 and the Connecticut countryside.

Ochtman and his wife, the accomplished American Impressionist painter Mina Fonda Ochtman

Mina Fonda Ochtman

Mina Fonda Ochtman was the wife of the American painter Leonard Ochtman and a notable American Impressionist in her own right. She was a part of the Cos Cob Art Colony and lived in Greenwich, Connecticut. Their daughter, Dorothy Ochtman Del Mar, was also a painter of note.-References:*...

 (1862–1924), moved to Mianus, Connecticut in 1891, where they became founding members of the Cos Cob Art Colony

Cos Cob Art Colony

The Cos Cob Art Colony was a group of artists, many of them American Impressionists, who gathered in and around Cos Cob, a section of Greenwich, Connecticut, from about 1890 to about 1920....

. Other members of the colony included John Henry Twachtman

John Henry Twachtman

John Henry Twachtman was an American painter best known for his impressionist landscapes, though his painting style varied widely through his career. Art historians consider Twachtman's style of American Impressionism to be among the more personal and experimental of his generation...

, Childe Hassam

Childe Hassam

Frederick Childe Hassam was a prolific American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums...

, Julian Alden Weir, and Theodore Robinson

Theodore Robinson

Theodore Robinson was an American painter best known for his impressionist landscapes. He was one of the first American artists to take up impressionism in the late 1880s, visiting Giverny and developing a close friendship with Claude Monet...

. From Grayledge, the house that he built overlooking the Mianus River

Mianus River

The Mianus River is a river in Westchester County, New York and Fairfield County, Connecticut, in the United States. It begins in the town of North Castle, New York in a series of ponds at about altitude...

, Ochtman instructed younger artists boarding at the nearby Bush-Holley House

Bush-Holley House

The Bush-Holley House is a National Historic Landmark in the Cos Cob section of Greenwich, Connecticut. It was constructed circa 1730 and in the late nineteenth century was a boarding house and the center of the Cos Cob Art Colony...

. In 1910 and 1911, Ochtman held classes for the New York Summer School at Grayledge. Ochtman's students included Clark Voorhees

Clark Voorhees

Clark Greenwood Voorhees was an American Impressionist and Tonalist landscape painter and one of the founders of the Old Lyme Art Colony....

 and Harriet Randall Lumis.

In 1912, Ochtman and his friend, the sculptor Edward C. Potter, formed the Greenwich Society of Artists and the Bruce Museum

Bruce Museum

There are two Bruce Museums in North America. One is in the Greenwich, CT USA, and another is in Bruce County, Ontario Canada. Other than identical names, they aren't related in any other way.*Bruce Museum of Arts and Science*Bruce Museum , Canada...

. Ochtman served as President of the society from 1916–1933 and as first art curator of the Bruce Museum.

Ochtman's daughter, Dorothy Ochtman (1892–1971), studied under her two artist parents and became an accomplished painter of still lifes.