Walter was born on August 6, 1838 at Paisley, Scotland, United States. His father was an inventor, and a maker of the handlooms used in the weaving of Paisley shawls. Before Walter was three the family came to America and settled in New York.
At the age of twelve he left school in New York. In 1870 he went to Munich, where for about seven years he studied and painted. His first teacher was George Raab, in whose class he obtained a sound knowledge of drawing; later he came under the instruction of Alexander Wagner, A. G. Von Ramberg, and Wilhelm Lindenschmit, the younger.
He entered the employ of a firm of real-estate agents. Soon afterward he was apprenticed for a term of five years to an engraver of banknotes, and during that time succeeded in saving about $800 with which to begin a career as a painter.
His first picture was hung at the National Academy exhibition of 1861, but a few years later he found it expedient for economic reasons to return to engraving for a livelihood.
For five years, until 1870, he was with the Western Bank Note and Engraving Company of Chicago. It was at Munich that he painted his two best pictures, "Toning the Bell" (1874) and "Sheep-Shearing in the Bavarian Highlands" (1876).
Returning in 1877 to New York, where he exhibited his "Sheep-Shearing" at the National Academy, he became one of the founders and the first president of the Society of American Artists, taught in the Art Students' League, and occupied a studio in the old university building in Washington Square. In 1880 at the Doll and Richards gallery, Boston, he opened a notable "one-man show" containing fifty-eight oil paintings and a large collection of water colors and drawings.
About ten years later he held another important exhibition in Boston. When mural decorations became popular he was commissioned to execute a frieze symbolizing peace and plenty for Darius Ogden Mills of New York.
A still more important decoration from his hand is the ceiling painting, "The Sciences, " in the entrance pavilion of the west corridor in the Library of Congress, Washington. He also did some minor decorative work for the house of William Thomas Evans, including two stained-glass windows, "The Rainbow" and "The Lost Chord. "
He traveled much, and everywhere recorded his impressions. He made a considerable number of illustrations, usually in charcoal, for such magazines as the Century and Harper's Monthly.
In the summer of 1909 he went to Spain; in December in Madrid he became ill and died after three weeks. Soon after his death memorial exhibitions of his pictures were held in New York, Buffalo, Boston, Washington, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and St. Louis.
Walter Shirlaw was active in the founding of the Art Institute of Chicago. He was one of the group of painters who decorated the famous dome of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts building of the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He also created famous ceiling painting, "The Sciences, " in the entrance pavilion of the west corridor in the Library of Congress, Washington. His works of great importance were the Toning of the Bell (1874), Sheep-shearing in the Bavarian Highlands (1876), Good Morning (1878), Indian Girl and Very Old (1880).
He became an associate of the National Academy in 1887, and an academician the following year.
He was a master designer, a serious and weighty painter, an influential teacher, a man of culture and intelligence, and his success, though not phenomenal, was fairly commensurate with his merits.
In 1880 he married Florence Manchester.
