Blakelock was born and studied in New York City and began his career as a late Hudson River School landscape painter. He made his exhibition debut at the National Academy of Design in 1868, exhibiting there annually until 1873 and sporadically thereafter. He rose from the ranks of the unknown and untrained to the unlikely status of being the most highly publicized American artist at the turn of the century. Blakelock spent the years 1869 - 72 in the West where he painted a number of topographical scenes. On his return East, he evolved the aesthetic that was to dominate his art - quiet evening scenes, large oak trees silhouetted against a sunset or moonlight glow, often with Indian camps sparkling in the dark beneath. Apparently predisposed to melancholia, the artist suffered a mental collapse in 1891 and was institutionalized briefly. Throughout the 1890s his emotional state gradually deteriorated, manifesting in delusions of grandeur and eccentric dress. A violent episode in 1899 resulted in the artist's uninterrupted confinement until 1916, after which he was hospitalized periodically until his death. Ironically the recognition that he had long sought came to him only after he was institutionalized