American Art Collaborative

Hays's fame rests on his sketches and oil paintings of animals and prairie views made on a 5-month trip up the upper Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, and across the Great Plains into the Dakotas and Montana. He also painted and exhibited fruit and flower still lifes. Hays later visited England and made sketching trips to Nova Scotia and the Adirondacks. His studio was in New York City. He exhibited at the National Academy of Design, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Maryland Historical Society.