Walter Shirlaw (1838-1909)
Study for decorative panel
Pencil and watercolor on paper mounted on paperboard
Measures: 62.5 x 74 x 5 cm (with frame)
50.5 x 62 (without the frame)
Signed in the circle lower right
Born near Glasgow in Scotland, Walter Shirlaw settled with his family in New York in 1841, when he was two or three years old. As a young boy, he took night classes at the National Academy of Design, and first exhibited his work there in 1861. The first years of his career were spent as an engraver at the American Bank-Note Company, while at the same time attempting to establish himself as a painter.
He later moved to Chicago, where he continued to work as an banknote engraver and also taught art at the Chicago Academy of Design. In 1870, at the relatively late age of thirty-two, Shirlaw travelled to Europe to study. Prevented from settling in Paris by the Franco-Prussian War, he instead studied in Munich, where he joined the small group of American painters working in the city, including Frank Duveneck and William Merrit Chase...
Category
1860s American Art Nouveau Antique Felice Zennaro