William J. McCloskey

William J. McCloskey was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 6th, 1858. He was the third of eight children, as well as the third generation of Irish immigrants.  He was brought up in Philadelphia, home to many talented artists, during a very intellectually thriving epoch. Little is known of William's childhood, but it safe to assume that he most likely attended private Catholic school. Upon graduating, William registered for an Antique Class at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in September 1877. The artist most likely inherited his artistic abilities from his mother, since she was registered at the Academy from 1878 to 1879.

In December 1882, William was newly settled in Denver, Colorado. Soon enough, McCloskey rented a studio at the College of Fine Arts at the University of Denver and was teaching a Life Class. At a social gathering of one of his neighbors, he met his future wife, Alberta Binford, for the first time that year.

By early June 1884, William and Alberta, with their two-month-old baby Eleanor, arrived in Los Angeles for a visit with the Binford family. Within the same year, the McCloskeys were settled at 230 Temple, Los Angeles, California. This was a very opportunistic time for the McCloskeys, since Los Angeles was just starting to develop as a permanent artist community, and both grew to prominence in that respected group.  Portraiture was William's strength, while flower still lifes were Alberta's.  Flowers happened to be a very popular subject matter for Southern California regional painters, since the area yielded many flowers--most popularly roses.  Portraiture was becoming replaced by the vanguard of photography at the time, though the McClosckeys, among other cohorts, still made a good living painting portraits for prominent figures and supporters of the art world. The McCloskeys especially depended on sympathetic likeness to convey their sitters' personalities, rather than on incorporating physical items, such as books, in the background, for example. Rather, the inner spirit of the sitter was able to come through, making especially William's paintings more of a metaphysical experience.

Untitled (Still Life, Tangerines), c. 1919 William J. McCloskey (American, 1858-1941) Oil on canvas; 22 3/4 x 29 x 4 1/2 in. 74.22.26 Gift of Mrs. Eleanor Russell

The subject for which William is most readily known is the tissue paper-wrapped citrus, "Untitled (Still Life, Tangerines) which is held at the Bowers Museum. The oil painting portrays well-lit fruit in a triangular arrangement, resting on a highly-reflective mahogany table top, backed by a darkly obscure plush or velvet drape. Alberta arranged her still lifes in a similar manner and trompe l'oiel rendering. This theme was marketable and in demand for the time period, which is why there are so many paintings of the same subject matter for the couple. Once the couple gained more fame in their field, they expanded their subjects into genre paintings (more than one figure portrayed, with a theme attached). During this time, the couple had moved to New York City, though they were not the art leaders they had been in Los Angeles.

Through constant migration from city to city the couple became associated with famous Bohemians of the time. They lived a lavish lifestyle which included things such as living in luxury hotels and sending their two children to private school.

Yet, by 1898, the couple had split. There has been no legal record of the couple's divorce records, so they merely separated due to William's Catholic upbringing as well as the mores of the time period. Their grandson said that allegedly, "Alberta had spent all of their money and could not stand William anymore, but William was also disappointed at Alberta's frequent miscarriages." Alberta and William had three children together, though one died. Daughter Eleanor was born in 1884 and was fourteen at the time of divorce, and son William Jr., born in 1889, was then ten years old.

William seemed to move more elusively than Alberta did after their split. What has been stated within the family is that William suffered an emotional breakdown and was admitted into the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan.  The Sanitarium, which was ran under the Seventh Day Adventist ideology, stressed natural remedies for his illness such as, "abstinence from alcohol and tobacco, temperance in diet, proper exercise, rest, and sunshine." This regimen seemed to have helped William through his emotional struggle, and throughout the rest of his life.

After his residence at the Sanitarium, William spent five years living at his family's home in Philadelphia between 1901 and 1904, “gardening and "puttering around," according to his grandson, Marshall Gretmore. In 1915, William moved to Los Angeles to live with his son, who himself suffered from shell shock from the effects of WWI.

William still continued to paint in realism style, but faced difficulty with the rapid stylistic changes that were occurring in the art world since 1890. The avant-garde artists at the time were the Impressionists, Fauvists, Cubists, Primitivists, etc.  Despite the trends of the time, he was named official painter of the Southern Division of the American Legion in late 1923, and the following May, five of his portraits were displayed at the Los Angeles Athletic Club, one of the area's most important clubs and one that demonstrated an interest in art. Late into William's life, he took to riding his bicycle everywhere. He eventually passed away at the Orange County Hospital on December 30th, 1941 at 83 years old right after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The timing of William J. McCloskey's death was symbolic: the United States, and the entire world, was on the eminence of industrialization, bringing forward postmodern thought.  A notion and mindset died with McCloskey, for his purveyance of realism and craft is well in memory of historians and artists with an awareness of his oeuvre.

Text extracted and adapted from Nancy Wall Moure’s essay in “Partners in Illusion: Alberta Binford and William J. McCloskey” produced on occasion of the exhibition of the same title at Bowers Museum in 1996.