George P.A. Healy's Iconic Painting at Faneuil Hall Being Added to the Boston Irish Heritage Trail
"Self-Portrait, George P.A.Healy," Courtesy Chicago History Museum
Regarded as one of America's greatest portrait painters of the 19th century, Healy was born in Boston on July 15, 1813, to William Healy and Mary Hicks, the oldest of five siblings. His father William Healy was an Irish immigrant and captain of a merchant vessel "whose Celtic strain ran bright and lovable through the temperament of the son," wrote the Catholic Encyclopedia.
In his autobiography, Reminiscences of A Portrait Painter, Healey wrote, "My grandfather was an Irishman who was ruined by the rebellion of 1798. Being poor, naturally, he had a large family. All he could do for his sons was to give fifty pounds to each of them to wish them well and to bid them henceforth provide for their own wants.
"My father went to London and was lucky enough to become a midship man in the East India Company's navy. When his captain died he went over to Boston and was appointed captain of a merchant vessel putting into the venture all his small earnings and becoming before long a thorough American. He was a bold spirited imprudent man, excellently well fitted for the adventurous life he led."
George was 16 years old when his father died, and he taught himself to paint as a way of making money for his widowed mother and siblings. He was befriended by Sally Foster Otis, who got him commissions of local Bostonians, including her husband Harrison Gray Otis. Eventually Healy moved to Europe where he remained for 16 years, earning prizes in Paris and Rome.
In Boston, his most famous painting is entitled "Webster Replying to Hayne," which hangs over the stage at Faneuil Hall. The 16 x 30 ' painting contains 130 portraits of senators and other distinguished men at that time, and recreates a famous speech in 1830 by Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster, according to the National Park Service.
The Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge have several Healy originals of John Amory Lowell, Asa Gray, James Grahame and Edward Tyrel Channing.
Healy’s portrait of then president-elect Abraham Lincoln, 1860, is the last known painting of Lincoln without a beard.
In his autobiography, Reminiscences of A Portrait Painter, Healey wrote, "My grandfather was an Irishman who was ruined by the rebellion of 1798. Being poor, naturally, he had a large family. All he could do for his sons was to give fifty pounds to each of them to wish them well and to bid them henceforth provide for their own wants.
"My father went to London and was lucky enough to become a midship man in the East India Company's navy. When his captain died he went over to Boston and was appointed captain of a merchant vessel putting into the venture all his small earnings and becoming before long a thorough American. He was a bold spirited imprudent man, excellently well fitted for the adventurous life he led."
Even as a child growing up in Boston, young George's personality was "a curious mixture of easygoing, devil-may-care Irish outlook and serious puritanical sense of duty," according to Boston merchant Richard Tucker.
One of Healy's most poignant memories of his childhood was of seeing Marquis de Lafayette and Daniel Webster at the groundbreaking of Bunker Hill Monument on June 17, 1925, when he was 12 years old. He came home and began sketching what he had seen, thus starting his career as an artist.
George was 16 years old when his father died, and he taught himself to paint as a way of making money for his widowed mother and siblings. He was befriended by Sally Foster Otis, who got him commissions of local Bostonians, including her husband Harrison Gray Otis. Eventually Healy moved to Europe where he remained for 16 years, earning prizes in Paris and Rome.
"Webster Replying to Hayne," Courtesy of National Park Service
In Boston, his most famous painting is entitled "Webster Replying to Hayne," which hangs over the stage at Faneuil Hall. The 16 x 30 ' painting contains 130 portraits of senators and other distinguished men at that time, and recreates a famous speech in 1830 by Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster, according to the National Park Service.
Several other Healy paintings are in the Americas Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, including a portrait of Senator Daniel Webster, Vice President Franklin Pierce, Mrs. Charles Morley and Boston theologian Orestes A. Brownson. The Museum has Healy's Sketch Book, 1837-38, which includea early sketches of Benjamin Franklin for a painting titled, "Benjamin Franklin Urging the Claims of the American Colonies Before Louis XVI."
"Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his Daughter, Edith," Courtesy of Worcester Art Museum
Healey's portrait titled "Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow and his
Daughter, Edith" is at the Worcester Art Museum. "This is one of two portraits Healy painted of Longfellow," writes the museum. "Recently a widower, Longfellow posed in Rome with his daughter Edith “with the golden hair,” made famous in his poem The Children’s Hour. This portrait is an interesting study of contrasts in which its feeling of somber monumentality is balanced by the tender sympathy between the poet and his daughter."
The Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge have several Healy originals of John Amory Lowell, Asa Gray, James Grahame and Edward Tyrel Channing.
“The Peacemakers,” photo courtesy of the White House Association
Another of Healy's most famous paintings is “The Peacemakers,” which depicts President Abraham Lincoln conferring with Admiral David Dixon Porter, General William Tecumseh, General Sherman and General Ulysses Grant on board the steamboat River Queen on March 28, 1865 to discuss peace terms for ending the Civil War. The painting is in the Oval Office at the White House.
"Abraham Lincoln," photo courtesy of Corcoran Collection / National Gallery of Art
Throughout his career, Healey is said to have painted more than 1,000 portraits. In Europe, Healy painted portraits of King Louis Philippe of France, of Pope Pius IX, composer Franz Liszt, singer Jenny Lind and others. Portraits of Americans, included Irish stage actor Tyrone Power, President Andrew Jackson, Vice-President John C. Calhoun, Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster, Civil War hero Colonel James A. Mulligan, John Quincy Adams, Henry Longfellow and Archbishop John Williams.
Read about additional landmarks being added to the Irish Heritage Trail in Boston and across Massachusetts.
Research + Text, Michael Quinlin
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