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Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
Patricia Hills, PhD, Founder and Director | Abigael MacGibeny, MA, Project Manager

Catalogue Entry

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Photo: Reproduced in Lisa N. Peters, The Portrait Collection of New-York Presbyterian—Weill Cornell Medical Center, 2015
William Henry Macy, 1885, March (Hills no. 31.1.126). Verso
Verso
Photo: Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D.
William Henry Macy, 1885, March (Hills no. 31.1.126). Verso inscription
Verso inscription
Photo: Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D.
[ 31.1 U.S. Portraits, Men ]info
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31.1 U.S. Portraits, Men

When Johnson returned to the United States, he not only painted genre paintings but he also continued to paint portraits, which gave him a steady income. After 1880 Johnson turned to portraiture almost exclusively. During the 1880s and 1890s he painted businessmen, lawyers, university presidents, and three U.S. presidents from life. At times he also painted their wives and children.

He was also commissioned to paint posthumous portraits, often from photographs. These portraits by and large do not have the sparkle and active brushwork of those done from life. It seems that the demand for portraits of business and civic leaders (and members of exclusive men’s clubs) was so high that portrait painters would often make copies of each other’s paintings to satisfy the market for such images. In many instances, it has been difficult to render opinions for such paintings. —PH

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Hills no. 31.1.126
William Henry Macy
Alternate title: William Henry Macy (1805–1887)
1885, March
Oil on canvas
34 x 22 in. (86.4 x 55.9 cm)
Signed and dated lower right, likely in Johnson's hand: E. Johnson / Mch 4-1885; verso of canvas, upper right, in red: Wm. H. Macy./New York./E. Johnson. Pinxt. 1885.
New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center
Provenance
New York Hospital, New York, by 1909
New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York, 1978 (by transfer)
Exhibitions
1921 Attending Physicians and Surgeons of the Society of the New York Hospital
Attending Physicians and Surgeons of the Society of the New York Hospital, In Celebration of Its 150th Anniversary, New York Public Library, New York, Exhibition of Portraits of the Presidents, November–December 1921, no. 14.
References
Society of the New York Hospital 1909
Biographical Catalogue Descriptive of the Portraits Belonging to the Society of the New York Hospital. New York: Society of the New York Hospital, 1909.
New York Public Library 1921
Exhibition of Portraits of the Presidents, Attending Physicians, and Surgeons of the Society of the New York Hospital, In Celebration of Its 150th Anniversary. New York: New York Public Library, 1921, p. 14, no. 14.
Crosby 1944
Crosby, Everett U. Eastman Johnson at Nantucket: His Paintings and Sketches of Nantucket People and Scenes. Nantucket, MA, 1944, p. 18, no. C-45, as William Henry Macy.
Peters 2015
Peters, Lisa N. The Portrait Collection of New York—Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. New York: Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, 2015, p. 13, illus., as William Henry Macy (1805–1887).
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Macy, William Henry
Biography:

William Henry Macy (1805–1887). Merchant and banker. Married Eliza Leggett Jenkins (m. 1827); father of eight children.

White, Terry James. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1967–.

Keywords
Record last updated July 29, 2021. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "William Henry Macy, 1885, March (Hills no. 31.1.126)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=591 (accessed on May 3, 2024).