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William H. Powell

American

BiographyBorn in New York City, William Powell became a noted portrait and history painter. Before 1837, he studied with James H. Beard and Frederick Franks in Cincinnati where he grew up, and then with the sponsorship of Nicholas Longworth, went East, studying with Henry Inman in New York City. He also studied in France and Italy and in 1842, had a portrait studio in New Orleans.

After his famous painting, Columbus before the Council of Salamanca, was shown in Washington DC, he won the commission to paint the last unpainted panel in the rotunda of the U.S. capitol building. For this, he did De Soto Discovering the Mississippi, which was installed after it was exhibited in New Orleans in 1854.

Most of the remainder of his career was spent in New York City, but he kept strong ties to Ohio where his painting,Perry's Victory, is in the State House in Columbus and, costing the state ten-thousand dollars, is "an object of patriotic pride to the thousands who have viewed it." (Roseboom, 275)

Source:
Peter Hastings Falk, Editor, Who Was Who in American Art
Eugene Roseboom and Francis Weisenburger, A History of Ohio

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