Harry Walcott

Background

Harry Mills Walcott was the son of a prominent pastor Dana Mills Walcott (1840–1919) and Elizabeth Billings (1840–1932). Walcott was the second of six children and he was born in Torrington, Connecticut, where his father had moved to take a position as clergyman. He grew up in Torrington and then in Bergen, County, New Jersey where his father had moved to take a position as pastor of First Presbyterian Church in 1876, when he was six and then 1st Congregational Church where he remained until his death more than forty years later.

Education

Walcott was artistically talented and he attended the School of the National Academy of Design, where he studied under Will Low and received a classical French Atelier Style education. In France, he studied at the private Académie Julian with Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens.

Career

He was known for highly decorative scenes of childhood. He was on the staff of the Art Institute of Chicago for many years. Walcott married another prominent artist Anabel "Belle" Havens on June 1, 1905 She was a grocer"s daughter, born in Haven"s Corner, near Columbus and raised in Newark, Ohio.

Showing the esteem he must have been held at the time, in 1907 he was on the jury for the Art Institute"s Annual Exhibition of American Painting and Sculpture with William Merritt Chase, Joseph DeCamp, Daniel Garber and J. Francis Murphy.

There does not seem to be a great deal of research done on Walcott as this article is prepared. The work that can be viewed are usually scenes of childhood, children running in fields In spite of the small number of works that have been on the art market, his prices are quite high

American Artist Association, Paris, France Salmagundi Club, New York, New York Society of American Artists, New York, New York National Academy of Design, New York, New York Edouard Vysekal William Twigg-Smith (1883–1950) Wilby Walter Hauserer (1891–1969) Olin Travis (1888–1975) Theodore Lukits (1897–1992) Walter C. Brownson (1881–1968).

Achievements

• Walcott won the prestigious Havermeyer Traveling Scholarship in 1894, which allowed him to travel to France for artistic training. Before the Walcott"s late marriage (they were both thirty-five) she had won the prestigious Hallgarten Price at the Annual Exhibition of the National Academy of Design in 1903. Before leaving Europe he was awarded an Honorable Mention at the 1897 Paris Salon. After returning to the United States, his work was shown first in the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo New York where he was awarded with a medal and then in the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis, Missouri, which celebrated the Centennial of the Louisiana Purchase, where his work was again awarded a medal. He won a medal at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, the World"s Fair that celebrated the rebirth of the city after the 1906 earthquake and fire.

Membership

American Artist Association, Paris, France

Salmagundi Club, New York, New York

Society of American Artists, New York, New York

National Academy of Design, New York, New New York