biography of William Newton BARTHOLOMEW (1822-1898)

Birth place: Boston, MA

Death place: Newton Centre, MA

Addresses: Boston, until his retirement; Newton Centre, MA

Profession: Drawing teacher, landscape and portrait painter, lithographer

Exhibited: Boston AC, 1879, 1889-1906; Boston WCC; PAFA, 1891-92

Comments: Son of Erastus and half-brother of Truman C. Bartholomew. He was trained as a cabinetmaker but gave up that trade to become an artist. He went to California in 1850 with J. Wesley Jones, the daguerreotypist. Returning to Boston, he introduced systematic instruction in drawing in several Boston schools in 1852 and was soon after put in charge of drawing instruction for all the Boston high schools, a position he held until 1871. He also published a series of popular drawing books.

Sources: G&W; Bartholomew, Record of the Bartholomew Family, 275-76 (photo. on 175); Van Nostrand and Coulter, California Pictorial, 106; Boston CD 1855-65; Swan, BA; Union Catalogue, Library of Congress. More recently, see, Pierce & Slautterback, 165; Hughes, Artists in California, 36; P&H Samuels, 23; The Boston Art Club.