Early Moon Rise

Leonard Ochtman was a Dutch-American artist known for his landscape paintings.

Born in the Netherlands in 1854, Ochtman was the son of a decorative painter. In 1866, his family relocated to Albany, NY, where he found work as a draftsman at a wood-working company.

Ochtman moved to New York City in 1879. In New York, he roomed with fellow artist Charles Warren Eaton and worked with a group of artists who were important in the development of the American impressionist movement.

Besides a brief stint at the Art Students League, Ochtman was primarily self-taught. He began exhibiting landscapes at the National Academy of Design in 1882, before traveling to Europe in 1886, returning to New York the following year.

Ochtman and his wife, the painter Mina Fonda Ochtman, moved to Connecticut in 1891, where they became founding members of the Cos Cob Art Colony. Their daughter Dorothy studied under her parents and became an accomplished painter in her own right.

In 1916, Ochtman became the president of the Greenwich Society of Artists and the curator of the Bruce Museum. He served in both roles until 1932.