Henry Ward Ranger was an American painter from western New York State, who was active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He lived and worked in Europe for a time — where he was exposed to the French art movement known as the Barbizon School, and became part of the less well known Hague School in the Netherlands — before returning to the U.S.
He is noted in particular for his Barbizon school inspired landscapes. These were frequently rendered with thick applications of paint that produced a remarkably textural surface.
Ranger was a key figure in the American Tonalist movement, and is even credited with coining the term. He was a founder of the artists colony n Old Lyme, Connecticut, which was originally dominated by Tonalism, though it is now better known for its later role as one of the centers of American Impressionism.