Biographies

William Page (11811 – 1885) He was born in Albany, NY, and studied law and religion before choosing to become a painter under Samuel F.B. Morse. From 1826 through 1850, Page painted strong, realistic portraits as well as idealized pictures with mythical and biblical themes. In 1850, he moved to Italy, where he became part of the international art community that included Harriet Hosmer and Charlotte Cushman. Though Page won the esteem of such patrons as the British poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, he never achieved wide popular success. His contemporaries did not share his taste for abstract aesthetic problems. Ezra Pound, writing in Venice in 1920, remembered Page as a strong painter . (NA 27.6:91)