Today is the birthday of the American painter Albert Pinkham Ryder. Ryder was born in the whaling village of Bedford, Massachusetts in 1847 and he painted seascapes all his life. He moved to New York City at the age of 20 and died there in 1917. Ryder only produced about 150 paintings in his lifetime, and he rarely signed or dated them. Ryder's early paintings were mostly landscapes, but he created a unique artistic vision of stylized shapes and figures captured under the gauzy, golden haze of moonlight. Despite his small output and a reclusive lifestyle, the New York art world acknowledged his genius during his lifetime. He was a founding member of the Society of American Artists, the famous 1913 Armory Show featured ten of his paintings, collectors snapped up his rare canvases, and after his death the Metropolitan Museum of Art held a memorial exhibition of Ryder's paintings. Since his demise, thousands of forgeries have been foisted onto the art market. Ryder used poor and ill-matched painting materials and unorthodox techniques--he reworked some paintings for decades--that have caused his moody canvases to literally disintegrate over time.