William F. Cogswell

William F. Cogswell (July 15, 1819 – December 24, 1903^[1]) was a portrait painter who was born in Fabius, New York. In the 1830s, while working in a Buffalo, New York color factory, he taught himself to paint. During the 1840s, he worked in New York City as a professional portrait artist.^[2] He lived in California from 1873 on, with the exception of several trips to Hawaii between 1878 and 1897.^[3] He died in Pasadena, California on December 24, 1903.^[4]

Legacy

Cogswell is most noted for his portraits of Ulysses S. Grant, currently hanging in the United States Senate, and Abraham Lincoln, which hangs in the White House. He also painted Hawaiian royalty, including King Kalākaua, Princess Liliuokalani, Queen Emma, King Kamehameha IV, and King Kamehameha V—the latter two from photographs.^[5] The Bishop Museum (Honolulu), the Butler Institute of American Art (Youngstown, OH), the Crocker Art Museum (Sacramento, CA), the Joslyn Art Museum (Omaha, NE), the National Portrait Gallery (Washington, DC), the New York Historical Society, the Ohio Historical Society (Columbus, OH), the Haggin Museum (Stockton, CA), the Indiana State Museum (Indianapolis, IN), the White House, the Union League Club of Chicago, and the Mabel Tainter Theater in Menomonie, WI are among the public collections holding paintings by William Cogswell.^[6]

Gallery

Wikimedia Commons has media related to William F. Cogswell.

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  1868 - Ulysses S. Grant
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  1869 - Abraham Lincoln

References

• New-York Historical Society, Dictionary of Artists in America, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1957.
• Severson, Don R. Finding Paradise: Island Art in Private Collections, University of Hawaii Press, 2002, p. 80-81.
• Collection of works

External links

• obituary
• bio
• bio
• William F. Cogswell at Find a Grave

Footnotes