Allan Edson (1846-1888) was a pupil of African American Hudson River School painter Robert Duncanson. He was a co-founder of both the Montreal-based Society of Canadian Artists in 1867 and the Ontario Society of Artists in 1872. Much of the spirit of the Hudson River School flows vibrantly through his landscapes. In the 1880s, he fell under the influence of Barbizon painter Leon Pelouse in France and consequently lost his capacites for conveying the divine behind the forms he chose as subjects of paintings.