Born in Lancashire, England in 1837, Thomas Moran emigrated with his family to the United States in 1844, settling in Philadelphia. He was apprenticed to a local wood-engraving firm when he was sixteen, aside from this, he received no formal training in art and was largely self-taught. In 1856, Thomas Moran exhibited his work for the first time at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Around the same time, he established the first of several studios with his brother, marine painter, Edward Moran. He found work as an illustrator for Scribner's and Harper's magazines. In 1871, he accompanied Ferdinand V. Hayden's 1871 Geological Survey Expedition to the Yellowstone Territory. Following this trip, he was well established as a notable painter of the American West. His further expeditions resulted in paintings of Yellowstone, Yosemite, Colorado, the Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevada, Lake Tahoe and the Grand Canyon.

In 1916, Moran began spending his winters in Santa Barbara, California, settling permanently there in 1922.

Member: National Academy of Design; the American Watercolor Society; the New York Etching Club.
Works Held: the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Denver Art Museum; the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; the M. H. de Young Museum, San Francisco; and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.