East Hampton - The Thomas Moran Trust is pleased to announce a summer event in celebration of the artists Thomas Moran and Mary Nimmo Moran. The event, an evening of art, cocktails, selected wines and hors d'oeuvres will be held at the Maidstone Club Tennis House at 29 Maidstone Lane in East Hampton on Friday, August 6 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Proceeds from the event will support the Thomas Moran Trust and efforts toward the restoration and opening of the Thomas Moran and Mary Nimmo Moran Studio, House and Garden located on Main Street in the village of East Hampton. The event will feature a Silent Art Auction with works by such outstanding visual artists as Will Barnet, Audrey Flack, Cornelia Foss, Clare Romano, John Ross, and Immi Storrs.

Joining on August 6 will be the esteemed architect Stephen Tilly, whose prominent architectural firm has been engaged by the Trust to plan the restoration of the Moran property. The firm's Pre-Design Report, submitted in January, works within the aesthetic and legal perimeters of the Historic Easement, the village and town of East Hampton, the National Landmark designation and the Save America's Treasures Grant awarded in 2009.

In his East Hampton studio, Thomas Moran painted some of the most influential and important American works of the late 19th and early 20th centuries including renowned panoramic views of the American west and many scenes of East Hampton. Mary Nimmo Moran, an internationally acclaimed printmaker, was a member of the New York Etching Club and the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers. Her etchings were praised for their boldness, originality and freedom from conventionality. In 1884 the couple became the first artists to build a house with a working studio in the Hamptons. With cultivated tastes, virtuoso talent and a bohemian outlook, the Morans built a house opposite East Hampton's Town Pond that was an original, unprecedented spin on the newly popular Queen Anne style. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965. The Moran's pioneering efforts in architecture and lifestyle galvanized a romantic tradition that is persists.

Because of his panoramic art works of the American West, Moran is dually remembered in the environmental and art history of this nation. "Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone," among his most famous works, once hung in the United States Capital and now is housed in the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Tickets can be purchased online at www.thomasmorantrust.org, or calling 631-324-0100.