Chauncey Foster Ryder. Chauncey Foster Ryder was an early 20th century American Postimpressionist landscape painter known for a green-gray palette termed 'Ryder green'.
Chauncey Foster Ryder was born in 1868 in Danbury, Connecticut, but grew up mainly in New Haven. He began studying painting as a boy and in his early twenties moved to Chicago to attend the Art Institute and then Smith's Academy.
After only a year at the latter, he was hired as an instructor. In 1891, he married Mary Dole Keith.
In 1901, the couple moved to Paris, France, where Ryder continued his art education, studying with Jean-Paul Laurens at the Académie Julian. Ryder stayed in France for several years, living in art colony at Étaples and exhibiting his work at the Paris Salon.
He took on occasional students, including the American painter William Posey Silva. His developing style was influenced both by the dramatic compositions of his friend and fellow painter Max Bohm and by his admiration for the Japanese artist Hokusai. In 1907, Ryder moved to New York City, where he was represented throughout his career by the art dealer William Macbeth. His landscapes were admired for their vigorous brushwork and for the degree to which he pushed the representational elements towards abstraction. He became known for a palette that leaned towards gray-green tones, and this eventually gave rise to use of the term 'Ryder green' to describe his