William Trost Richards was an American landscape artist. He was associated with both the Hudson River School and the American Pre-Raphaelite movement.

The American Pre-Raphaelites was a movement of landscape painters in the United States during the mid-19th century. It was named for its connection to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and for the influence of John Ruskin on its members. Painter Thomas Charles Farrer led the movement, and many members were active abolitionists. Their work together was short-lived, and the movement had mostly dissolved by 1870.