William Michael Harnett was an American painter of Irish origin. His unique trompe l'oeil still lifes of everyday objects made the artist one of the masters of the 19th century in this field.
Background
William Michael Harnett was born on August 10, 1848, in Clonakilty town, County Cork, Ireland. His father worked as a bootmaker and his mother was a seamstress.
When William was a child, his family left Ireland because of the potato famine and relocated to Philadelphia, United States.
Education
William Michael Harnett studied at the Catholic school. While a teenager, he started his artistic training by learning the profession of an engraver. In 1866, William enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where he explored the Antique art.
Three years later, the young man moved to New York City, where he began to attend the night classes of the Cooper Union in 1871. Harnett had also studied painting at the National Academy of Design from 1874.
Despite, William received some painting lessons from a master of portraits Thomas Jensen.
Career
In fact, William Michael Harnett started to work in his childhood to support his family – he sold newspapers and fulfilled the duties of an errand boy.
In New York City where William relocated at the early 1870s, he earned his living by producing engraving designs on table silver in a silver engraving shop.
As to Harnett’s artistic career, his first oil paintings probably influenced by Philadelphia still-life artists Raphaelle and James Peale appeared in 1874. The pictures depicting pipe and a beer, fruits and vegetables were presented to the public the next year at the National Academy's annual exhibition and later at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. One of the artworks was sold for $50. So, it was the first professional and financial success for the artist.
It remained the following years, between 1873 and 1879, when William sold a lot of his works. However, they were presented mostly in private collections than in museums – somewhere in pubs or business offices, because they did not comply with the contemporary criteria of the high art.
Nevertheless, the money the artist consolidated allowed him to travel around Europe. He visited London, Frankfort where he worked for a private patron, and Munich where he had stayed from 1881 for four years. There, Harnett produced one of his most famous masterpieces – the series titled After the Hunt. The paintings depicted a door with hanging on it hunting equipment (hunting and powder horns, shotguns), dead game birds or Tyrolean hat. The images were so realistic that the viewers tried to hang their outdoor clothes on the painted pegs.
While in Munich, the artist attended actively the Munich Kunstverein and even sent an application to join the Munich Royal Academy which was not accepted. Before his return to New York City in 1886, the painter also visited the capital of France where he exhibited his After the Hunt at the Paris Salon of 1885.
In New York City, Harnett exhibited his Old Violin again at the National Academy of Design. Since that time, his popularity was moderate and the prices for his artworks was not so high. The paintings of this artistic period were somehow influenced by the style of the 17th-century Dutch still lifes the artist had seen abroad.
During his late years, William Michael Harnett's painting activity was restricted by his rheumatism and kidney disease. However, the paintings of the artist were sold for several thousand dollars, and his remarkable realism was featured by many periodicals, writers and simple viewers. As to the professional artistic community, William Michael Harnett was never included to the list of members of the National Academy in New York City.