New Web objects Portrait

Henry Walton

Date: c. 1850

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1992.140

Text Entries: Henry Walton earned his living by painting portraits, primarily watercolors, although he is most famous for his 1836-1850 lithographs of New York townscapes. Walton, born in New York, made his way to California in 1851 with a gold rush party, but left for the Midwest in 1857 to settle in Michigan. This itinerant artist masterfully rendered forms, color and texture with convincing realism-indicative of the wide variety of styles regarded as American folk art. Walton's attention to specificity and detail was a result of his concerted effort to master technique through practice both as a painter and printmaker.