Maine's first settled professional landscape painter, Charles Codman (1800 - 1842) arrived in Portland in 1822. Though his origins are cloudy, Codman trained as an ornamental painter in the Boston area and advertised as such. However, it was not until 1827, when art critic John Neal returned to Portland, that Codman gained the attention and patronage necessary to launch his career as a serious landscape artist. Indeed, Codman's oil paintings of Diamond Cove and Munjoy Hill inspired a group of younger men and women to pursue the arts locally. In the decades prior to the Civil War, Codman and Neal turned Portland into an art center of national significance. Though Codman died early of consumption, his works were avidly collected by local institutions. The largest single holding is in the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine.