WILLIAM HENRY COTTON

Painter, muralist, cartoonist, and illustrator William Henry Cotton was born in Newport, Rhode Island in 1880. Cotton studied at the Cowles Art School in Boston, and in 1900 at the Académie Julian in Paris with J. P. Laurens. Cotton painted portraits and figures, and produced many illustrations and cartoons for the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and other magazines. He founded the National Association of Portrait Painters, was an associate member of the National Academy of Design and a member of the Newport Art Association. Cotton’s work has been exhibited at the National Academy of Design, New York City, where it was awarded a prize in 1907; the Society of Independent Artists, New York City; Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Dallas Museum of Fine Art, 1909, where it won a medal; Art Institute of Chicago; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; and the Boston Art Club, where it was awarded a prize in 1916. The artist designed murals for theatres in New York City, such as the Capitol, Apollo, and Selwyn, as well as for the Hotel Gibson in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Easton’s Beach in Newport, Rhode Island. He died in Sargeantville, New Jersey in 1958.