Wilson Henry Irvine

Wilson Henry Irvine was born on February 28, 1869 near Byron, Illinois. His great-grandfather had emigrated from Scotland to Canada and then to Illinois, where the family had success in farming and business.

Irvine was born on the family farm. Wilson Irvine’s father served in the Union Army during the Civil War and eventually became a railroad mail agent in Rockford, Illinois.

Irvine attended high school in Rockford. Around that time, the Liberty Walkup company had invented the airbrush and founded an art school in Rockford. Irvine enrolled in the school, where he learned to use the airbrush and became a successful airbrush artist in Chicago, working for the Chicago Portrait Company.

From 1895 to 1903, Irvine was enrolled in evening classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. He kept his day job as a commercial portrait artist, as he was supporting his wife, Lydia, their two sons and a daughter. He joined other students at the Art Institute in the Palette and Chisel Club, which helped to further develop their skills and display their work.

Around 1900 Irvine began to exhibit his work. He traveled to Montana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Maine and Connecticut, searching for new and interesting landscapes to paint. Irvine was able to show his work often and, by 1911, he had become one of Chicago’s most established and respected artists.

In 1914, at age 45, Irvine moved with his family to Old Lyme, Connecticut, but remained close to his friends in Chicago. In 1915, Irvine was named chairman of the Chicago Commission for the Encouragement of Local Art, created by the Chicago mayor’s office.

Irvine became a part of the Old Lyme Art Colony at the boarding house of Florence Griswold. In Old Lyme, Irvine experimented with various techniques, including Prismatic Painting, placing prisms over his glasses and painting the light colors that he saw around the objects he painted. In Old Lyme he painted portraits of his family and still lifes as well as landscapes.

In 1926, Irvine was elected a Member of the National Academy of Design.

Irvine died at his home in Hamburg, Connecticut, on August 25, 1936.

His works are in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, the Chicago Art Institute, the Florence Griswold Museum, Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Union League Club.

 References:

Harold Spencer, Ph.D. Wilson Henry Irvine (1869-1936). Illinois Historical Art Project.