George Peter Alexander Healy

George Peter Alexander Healy was one of the most sought after portrait painters of the nineteenth century, on both sides of the Atlantic. His portraits are direct and dignified, and he painted American presidents from John Quincy Adams to Ulysses S. Grant.

He was born in Boston in 1813 and studied in Paris with Antoine-Jean Gros. He won medals at the Paris Salon in 1840 and 1855 and painted French royals, Pope Pius IX and Franz Liszt. His large picture The Peacemakers (1868) shows Lincoln with his generals. He later settled in Chicago, where he died in 1894. The Newberry Library in Chicago holds 41 of his portraits.

His portrait of the painter George Inness shows his clear, sympathetic likenesses.