Biografie von William MCILVAINE (1813-1867)

Birth place: Philadelphia

Death place: Brooklyn

Addresses: Philadelphia, until 1856; NYC, 1856-on

Profession: Landscape painter, author

Studied: studied art in Europe after graduating from the Univ. of Pennsylvania in 1832

Exhibited: NAD, 1857-61; PAFA, 1851-55; Brooklyn AA, 1864

Work: NYHS; BMFA

Comments: Was in business with his father in Philadelphia for several years before taking up art professionally about 1845 and moving to NYC. In 1849 he visited the California gold fields and Mexico (June to November) and the following year his Sketches of Scenery and Notes of Personal Adventures in California and Mexico, was published with sixteen plates after his own views of the mines. A panorama based on his sketches was painted by Russell Smith (see entry) and shown in Philadelphia in 1850 and Baltimore in 1851. McIlvaine moved from Philadelphia to NYC about 1856 and worked there until the Civil War, in which he served as a member of the NY 5th Regiment of Volunteers. After the war he lived in Brooklyn.

Sources: G&W; Univ. of Penna., Biographical Catalogue of the Matriculates of the College, 86; Van Nostrand and Coulter, California Pictorial, 96-97; Phila. CD 1839-55; NYCD 1857-65; Brooklyn CD 1867; 7 Census (1850), Pa., L, 820; Rutledge, PA; Cowdrey, NAD; Phila. Public Ledger, Aug. 23, 1850, and Baltimore Sun, May 7, 1851 (citations courtesy J.E. Arrington); Jackson, Gold Rush Album, repros. More recently, see Hughes, Artists in California, 370; P&H Samuels, 317.