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William Aiken Walker (March 11, 1839 – January 3, 1921) was an American artist best known for
"Found art: Toledano resurrects forgotten painter"
* 1839 births 1921 deaths Artists from Charleston, South Carolina 19th-century American painters 19th-century American male artists American male painters 20th-century American painters 20th-century American male artists American genre painters Painters from South Carolina People of South Carolina in the American Civil War Painters from Maryland Artists from Baltimore Burials in South Carolina {{US-painter-1830s-stub
William Aiken Walker (March 11, 1839 – January 3, 1921) was an American artist best known for genre
Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
paintings of black sharecropper
Sharecropping is a legal arrangement with regard to agricultural land in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land.
Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range ...
s. He also documented the American Civil War era during his service in the Confederate Army.
Walker was born to an Irish Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
father and a mother of South Carolina background in Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, the county seat of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston metropolitan area. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint o ...
in 1839. In 1841, after his father died, Walker's family remained in Charleston where Walker grew up. (Seibels)
In 1861, during the American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
, Walker was conscripted in the Confederate Army and was sent to Morris Island as part of the Palmetto Guard. Almost immediately, Walker was sent on to Richmond and Camp Davis. Four months later, he received a medical discharge from the army. For the remainder of the war he served as a civilian draftsman to the Confederate Engineers Corps and made maps and drawings of Charleston's defenses. (Seibels) He was separated from the military at the end of 1864. After the Civil War, Walker moved to Baltimore, where he produced small paintings of the "Old South" to sell as tourist souvenirs.
In 1868 Walker painted the ruins of the Cathedral of Saint John and Saint Finbar that burned down in December 1861 in a fire that ravaged Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, the county seat of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston metropolitan area. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint o ...
.
He is best known for his paintings depicting the lives of poor black emancipated slaves, especially sharecroppers
Sharecropping is a legal arrangement with regard to agricultural land in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land.
Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range ...
in the post-Reconstruction American South. Two of his paintings were reproduced by Currier and Ives as chromolithographs. Walker continued painting until his death on January 3, 1921, in Charleston, where he is buried in the family plot at Magnolia Cemetery.
References
* Seibels, Cynthia, ''The Sunny South, The Life and Art of William Aiken Walker'', Spartanburg, South Carolina, Saraland Press, 1995. * Trovaioli, August P. and Roulhac B. Toledano, ''William Aiken Walker, Southern Genre Painter'', Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1972.External links
"Found art: Toledano resurrects forgotten painter"
* 1839 births 1921 deaths Artists from Charleston, South Carolina 19th-century American painters 19th-century American male artists American male painters 20th-century American painters 20th-century American male artists American genre painters Painters from South Carolina People of South Carolina in the American Civil War Painters from Maryland Artists from Baltimore Burials in South Carolina {{US-painter-1830s-stub