biographie de William Joseph MCCLOSKEY (1859-1941)

Birth place: Phila., PA

Death place: Orange, CA

Addresses: Phila., PA; Los Angeles, CA, 1884-c.1924 (also had studio in NYC); Ashland, OR, c.1924; Orange, CA

Profession: Painter

Studied: PAFA, with Christian Schussele and Thomas Eakins.

Exhibited: PAFA Ann., 1879, 1889; NAD, 1888-91; Boston AC, 1889, 1891; Brooklyn AA, 1891; AIC, 1891; Paris Salon, 1893; Royal Academy of British Artists; AAS, 1902 (prize); Mark Hopkins Inst., 1897-98; Bowers Mus., Santa Ana, 1969.

Work: Calif. Hist. Soc.; Soc. of Calif. Pioneers; Hudson River Mus., Yonkers, NYC; Syracuse Univ.; LACMA; MMA

Comments: Known for his still lifes, which typically consisted of fruit wrapped in thin, crinkly tissue paper. He was also a prominent portraitist. He and his wife Alberta McCloskey (see entry), established their own portrait studio in Los Angeles in 1884, and worked in Denver, Salt Lake City, NYC, San Francisco, England, and Paris. They separated c.1897. He was the official portraitist for the American Legion in Los Angeles before moving to Oregon in the mid 1920s.

Sources: WW04; Hughes, Artists in California, 366; Gerdts, Art Across America, vol. 3: 299-300; Fink, American Art at the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons, 371; Falk, Exh. Record Series.