Jesse Talbot.

About Jesse Talbot

Jesse Talbot was an American landscape painter and a friend of the poet Walt Whitman. Born in Dighton, Massachusetts, Talbot worked for the American Tract Society and other evangelical Christian organizations in New York City before becoming a professional artist, first exhibiting in the National Academy of Design in 1838. His work was often favorably compared to that of Thomas Cole and other leaders of the Hudson River School of American landscape painters. Talbot developed a friendship with Walt Whitman in the 1850s. The notebook in which Whitman first wrote down the ideas for Leaves of Grass is known as the “Talbot Wilson notebook” because Talbot’s name and address are written on the inside front cover. Talbot died in relative obscurity in 1879.