Henry Bayley Snell was a well-known American impressionist painter from New Hope, Pennsylvania. He was born in England and emigrated to the United States, settling in New York City in 1875 at the age of 17. While studying art at the Art Students League, he supported himself working for an engineering firm and a lithography studio. Snell married the artist, Florence Francis (his first cousin) in 1888 and began painting in New Hope in 1900, and later moved there around 1926.

Snell painted on many trips to Europe and India, and is especially noted for his coastal scenes of Cornwall, England. He also painted harbor scenes of Gloucester, Massachusetts, and Boothbay Harbor, Maine, where he co-founded a second art school/colony in 1921 along with Frank Leonard Allen called Boothbay Studios. This school was described in its brochures as a Summer School of Industrial, Normal, and Fine Art, by 1924 the school occupied six buildings along the shore on Boothbay Harbor's east side. He also taught in New York City, Washington, D.C. and at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art and Design).