Irving Ramsey Wiles

Irving Ramsey Wiles studied at Art Students League of New York and Académie Julian. Training under James Carroll Beckwith, William Merritt Chase and Carolus-Duran is recorded. The recorded working language is English. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are portrait, landscape and marine. Places of work recorded in the authority are Peconic. Work by Irving Ramsey Wiles is recorded in the collections of Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Corcoran Gallery of Art and National Portrait Gallery.

• Name — Irving Ramsey Wiles • Born — 8 April 1861 • Birthplace — Utica, New York • Died — 29 July 1948 • Place of death — Peconic, New York • Training — Sedgwick Institute; Art Students League of New York • Awards — Third Hallgarten Prize (1886)

Irving Ramsey Wiles was born in Utica, New York on April 8, 1861. He was educated at the Sedgwick Institute in Great Barrington, and learned the basics of painting from his father, Lemuel M. Wiles (1826–1905[4]), who focused primarily on landscapes. From 1879 to 1881 he studied in the Art Students League of New York under James Carroll Beckwith and William Merritt Chase, and later in Paris under Carolus-Duran. In his early years, he worked as an illustrator for American magazines, and later he devoted himself with great success to portraiture. He was a member of the Society of American Artists, which prefaced his 1897 election into the National Academy of Design as an associate.[5] Wiles was also a member of the American Water Color Society. While active as a varied painter in the late 19th century, his career reached new heights in 1902, when his portrait of the actress Julia Marlowe was exhibited at the National Academy. The elegant and successful grand manner portrait bolstered him to fame, and from 1902 until the late 1920s, when he retired due to infirmity, Wiles continually received portrait commissions from America's elite.[6] Wiles would go on to paint notable Americans such as Theodore Roosevelt and William Jennings Bryan.[7] While prized today for his paintings and portraits of women, Wiles was considered accomplished in the field of male portraiture during his life: in 1919 he was selected by the National Art Committee to paint portraits for a pictorial history of World War I.[8] Toward the end of his career Wiles was noted for the plein-air land and seascapes he painted at his home in Peconic, New York. Wiles died penniless (without so much as headstone) in Peconic on July 29, 1948.[9] • Illustration — Irving Wiles. The Sonata (1889) Oil on canvas. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (de Young Museum) • Illustration — Irving Wiles. Portrait of Miss Julia Marlowe (1901). Oil on canvas. National Gallery, Washington, D.C. • Illustration — Irving Wiles. Brown Kimono (Portrait of Kathryn Beta La Forque) (1908). Oil on canvas. Smithsonian American Art Museum