Biografie von Virgil WILLIAMS (1830-1886)

Birth place: Dixfield, ME

Death place: near St. Helena, CA

Addresses: Boston, 1860-62 and 1862-71; San Francisco, CA, 1862 and 1871-86

Profession: Landscape, genre, and portrait painter

Studied: Brown University; NYC under Daniel Huntington; in Rome with Wm. Page, 1853-60

Exhibited: PAFA, 1861; California Art Union, 1865; Boston AC, 1875, 1880, 1889

Member: SFAA (cofounder); Bohemian Club (cofounder & pres., 1875-76)

Work: Oakland Art Mus.; Silverado Museum, St. Helena, CA; CHS, Bancroft Library, Univ., Calif., Berkeley.

Comments: Williams was married to Mary Page, daughter of William Page (see entry), Williams' close friend. He divorced Mary, however, about 1860. He had a studio in Boston until 1862, when he was commissioned to design and install an art gallery at Woodward's Gardens in San Francisco. He returned to Boston and taught drawing at Harvard and the Boston School of Technology. In 1871 Williams married Dora Norton, and returned with her to San Francisco, where he directed the newly formed School of Design until his death. He taught many artists who later became of the nation's most renowned painters. He was a member of the California Landscape School of the 1870s although his paintings of California are rare. Williams died on his ranch near St. Helena.

Sources: G&W; WPA (CA), Introduction to California Art Research, II, 138-57, biblio., repros.; Rutledge, PA; Antiques (May 1947), 307, repro.; Panorama (Jan. 1946), 46, and (Aug. 1948), back cover. More recently, see Hughes, Artists in California; P&H Samuels, cite alternate birthplace of Taunton, MA, 531.