Born during a European sojourn of his more famous father, George Inness, Jr. grew up in Brooklyn, where he studied drawing at the Adelphi Academy, and in Medfield, Massachusetts. He registered for the National Academy's antique class in 1869, but in 1870 he went abroad with his father who gave him lessons for several years in Italy and France. Inness, Jr., also spent a month in the atelier of Leon Bonnat. Returning to Boston five years later, he set up a temporary studio, but soon moved to New York where he shared a working space with his father. The family took up residence in Montclair, New Jersey.
Although he made an initial effort to distinguish his work from his father's by including cattle and horses in his landscapes, Inness, Jr., found it difficult to resist the powerful influence of the older man. His 1879 marriage to Julia G. Smith, the wealthy daughter of the president of the Century Company, freed him of the worries of selling his often derivative landscapes. A decisive change occurred, however, a year following his father's 1894 death, when a vision of Inness, Sr. convinced him to destroy some 100 canvases and begin anew as a student in Paris. He commenced painting mystically tinged religious works, such as his successful The Crucifixion and The Entombment. Back in the United States by 1900, he set up a summer residence in Cragsmoor and a winter home in Tarpon Springs, FL. There, he spent four years (1918-22) completing an eight-canvas suite for the Church of the Good Shepherd.
Inness, Jr. was known as an excellent public speaker and an author--he published a biography of his father in 1917 and a privately printed collection of humorous stories (Random Thoughts) in 1920. He was generous to the Academy, giving $200 to aid needy students in 1907, and offering the George Inness Gold Medal as an award given at annual exhibitions. Three years after his death, his widow presented the Academy with a set of three binders containing photographs of all his known pictures. It was her hope that this resource would serve as a check against spurious paintings.
