biography of William Perkins BABCOCK (1826-1899)

Birth place: Boston, MA

Death place: Bois d'Arcy (France)

Addresses: Active through most of his career in France (village of Barbizon)

Profession: Portrait, still life, and figurative painter

Studied: With Thomas Couture, Paris, 1847

Exhibited: Boston Athenaeum, 1853-56, 1859, 1864, 1869-70; NAD, 1863, 1866; Boston AC, 1870s; Paris Salon, 1855, 1865-66, 1868, 1870, 1874, 1878; Brooklyn AA, 1877-78; Royal Acad., London.

Work: BMFA

Comments: Expatriate painter, who after a period of study with Couture, moved to the Barbizon region of France, forming a close friendship with Jean-Francois Millet. Best known for his peasant subjects, although he also produced figure studies, mythological subjects and still lifes.

Sources: G&W; Thieme-Becker; BÈnÈzit; Swan, BA; NAD Cat. 1863. More recently, see Naylor, NAD; Baigell, Dictionary; Fink, American Art at the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons; For Beauty and for Truth, 32.