Background
Perry was born in Boston on July 31, 1831. His father was Enoch Wood Perry, and mother was Hannah Knapp Dole.
Perry was born in Boston on July 31, 1831. His father was Enoch Wood Perry, and mother was Hannah Knapp Dole.
The family moved to New Orleans with his family as a teenager in 1848 and attended its public schools. In 1852 he went to Europe for four years and studied with Emanuel Leutze at the Düsseldorf Academy, Thomas Couture in Paris, and in Rome.
After working several years as a clerk in a commission house, Perry began formal art education. Perry served as the United States. Consul to Venice between 1856 and 1858. Upon returning to America, he opened a studio in Philadelphia.
On the eve of the American Civil War, Perry moved back to New Orleans and opened a studio in 1860.
He painted a portrait of Senator John Slidell and the signing the Ordinance of Secession of Louisiana by early 1861. Later in 1861 Perry completed a portrait of Jefferson Davis posed before a map of the Confederate States of America, which was raffled off at a fair with the proceeds benefiting the southern war effort.
He traveled to northern California, where he spent several years sketching and painting with Albert Bierstadt, taking special interest in Yosemite Valley. While there he painted a portrait of future governor Washington Bartlett.
Around 1864, Perry sailed to Honolulu, with the idea of painting the wonders of nature there, and was well received.
In 1865 Perry painted a portrait of Brigham Young which hangs in the Salt Lake City Council chambers. Perry died at his home in New York City on December 14, 1915. The Addison of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts, the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York are among the public collections holding works by Perry.