Background
William Edward West was born December 10, 1788 in Lexington, Ky. , the son of Edward West, a watchmaker and inventor, a man of uncommon mechanical talents.
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William Edward West
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According to James Reid Lambdin, young West began by painting miniatures. Several years later he went to Philadelphia to study under Thomas Sully. He spent a number of years after that at Natchez, Tenn. , where he painted many of the best of his early pictures. In 1822, under the patronage of a resident of Nashville, he went to Europe. During the sittings for a portrait of the Countess Guiccioli, which followed that of Byron, West is said to have met Shelley and Leigh Hunt. In England, where he went next, he painted a number of portraits, including that of Mrs. Hemans. According to the letters of Washington Irving, who visited him there, West was in Paris in the winter of 1824-25. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, chiefly portraits, from 1826 to 1833, and in other London exhibitions until 1837, but by 1840 had returned to America. He appears in New York City directories from 1840 to 1850 and again in 1852. In his later years he went once more to Nashville, where he died. Almost until the day of his death he was engaged in painting. His first successful pieces were illustrations for Washington Irving's "The Pride of the Village" and "Annette Delarbre, " but according to Henry Theodore Tuckerman he excelled in "fancy cabinet portraits. " "The Confessional, " said to be a favorite of Irving's, is in the collection of the New York Historical Society. West was an intimate friend of Charles Robert Leslie, Washington Irving, and Sir David Wilkie.
