John Mulvany (–1906) was an Irish born American artist best known as an artist of the American WestTaft, "Artists and Illustrators of the Old West 1850-1900" New York; Bonanza Books 1953 who painted the first large (11 ft x 21 ft) image of General Custer’s defeat by the Oglala Sioux Indians at Little Big Horn in 1876. Mulvany's painting Custer’s Last Rally, was finished in 1881.Kansas City Times 17 March 1881; Kansas City Times 19 March 1881 In Ireland, he is known for The Battle of Aughrim, painted in 1885Freeman’s Journal,30 June 1885 and Niamh O’Sullivan’s article for Gorry Gallery Exhibition Catalogue Dec. 2010, Dublin, Ireland and exhibited in Dublin in 2010.Niamh O’Sullivan, Irish Times 2 October 2010 and Conor O’Clery www. globalpost.com/dispatch/…/battleof-aughrim-john mulvany 12 Oct 2010
Mulvany also recorded the American Civil War on canvas as well as maintaining a career as a portrait painter throughout his life.Robert Emmet, (N. O’Sullivan, ’The Lost Patriot’s Portrait’, The Irish Times, 13 Sept 2003; Gen. Francis Meagher,(New York Tribune 22 Nov 1897) Sitting Bull, (O’Sullivan correspondence with artist’s family) Joseph Pulitzer,(Dippie, Brian) H.J. Heinz, (O’Sullivan, N correspondence with Heinz family) Dr. Patrick Cronin, (‘Dr. Cronin, An Excellent Portrait’, Daily Inter Ocean 2 June 1889) Brigham Young,( Salt Lake Herald 30 Oct 1892) Dr. Robinson ("Lessons in Likeness: Portrait Painters in Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley" By Estill Curtis Pennington, 2011, ill, p. 75)
Early life and training
Mulvany was born in Moynalty, Meath, Ireland to tenant farmers, Francis Lee and Thomas Mulvany.Bishop Thomas Mulvany genealogy When he immigrated to New York City in 1851 as a stowaway at the age of 12,Tuite’s Gaelic American 3 part series in March/April 1909 he was old enough to have witnessed and grasped the horrors of the Irish Famine.Cusack, Danny. The Great Famine in County Meath. Meath County Council, Ireland, 1995 He worked as a tow boy on the Erie Canal and came to the attention of Professor Juan B. Wandesforde at the National Academy of Design in New York City.Brooklyn Star 17 Oct. 1900 In 1859 Mulvany enrolled in classes thereNational Academy of Design Registry before going to Washington, D.C. to work for Mathew Brady by 1863.Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865. Volume 2, January 1-December 31, 1863. Washington Wednesday, January 7, 1863 and Alexander Gardner in 1865.Daily National Republican, Washington DC, 26 December 1865
Mulvany never served in the army but may have worked as a sketch artist for a Chicago newspaper. Mulvany's later Civil War paintings were praised for their realism - paintings such as Sheridan’s Ride at Winchester, 1896'Sheridan’s Famous Ride’ Baltimore American 5 December 1896,‘Sheridan’s Ride on Canvas’, Washington Post, 5 December 1896, Chicago Inter Ocean 6 December 1896 McPherson and Revenge, 1889,‘McPherson and Revenge’ Chicago Citizen, 7 April 1888, Murphysboro American, 14 August 2008, Battle of ShilohGateway Heritage Magazine Index 10 and The Death of General Mulligan.New York Herald 22 Nov. 1897
Munich training
After the Civil War, Mulvany worked for Samuel B. Fassett, a leading photographer in Chicago.1867 Chicago City Directory He submitted paintings to exhibitions in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia.Smithsonian Archives of American Art Art Exhibition Catalogue Index Master List Mulvany found a patron in St. Louis, Samuel B. Coale, who provided terms for him to study in EuropeMorrissey, "Paintings and Painters", Gateway Magazine 1998 pg 30 and Fuhrmeister, Kohle, Thielemans Eds. American Artists in Munich p. 85 where he enrolled in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.http://matrikel.adbk.de - academy records of the Royal Munich Academy studying with Alexander von Wagner, De Kaiser and Carl Theodor von Piloty, then with Jean-Léon Gérôme in Paris. He also spent time in Antwerp studying works by Rembrandt.
He was a classmate of Walter Shirlaw and Frank Duveneck.Akademie der Bildenclen Kunste Munchen, http://matrikel.adbk.de.archiv.matrikelbucher Mulvany won a medal for his efforts, and returned to Chicago in the fall of 1871 just before the devastating fire."Art in Chicago", Daily Alta, California 4 Nov. 1871
Career beginnings
Over the next five years Mulvany worked in Eldon, Iowa; St Louis, Missouri; Denver, Colorado; and Louisville, Kentucky, painting portraits and western genre pictures. In 1876 he exhibited Preliminary Trial of a Horsethief in New York City. The painting, reportedly sold for $5,000, won him national recognition and a reputation as a Western painter. Other western-themed works include Lynch Law – Comrade’s Appeal 1877,National Academy of Design 1877 #461 Scouts of the Yellowstone, 1877"Cincinnati Enquirer" 10 Nov. 1878 and Back to the Wigwam 1881.Index of American Paintings, Smithsonian Institution #03860423 pg.5328
The painting of Preliminary Trial of a Horsethief was painted near Oskaloosa, Iowa. The Magistrate in this trial, seated in the center of the picture, is John F. Cartwright (1827–1893), my Second Great Grandfather. The Des Moines Register published this picture in their Sunday edition in about 1954.
"Custer's Last Rally" In 1876 when news of General George Custer's fatal defeat by the Sioux Indians at the Battle of the Little Big Horn reached the East, Mulvany immediately recognized the significance of this event and headed west to Montana to capture it on canvas.Omaha Daily Bee "The Last Rally of Custer" 30 Nov. 1890 Over the next four years, he made two trips to the battle site and set up a studio in Cincinnati, Salida, Denver and then in Kansas City.,Cincinnati Enquirer 10 Nov. 1878, Kansas City Daily Journal 2 March 1881, Denver Daily Tribune 23 February 18879 Mulvany's large masterpiece, the 11 ft x 20 ft Custer’s Last Rally, 1881, began its seventeen-year coast-to-coast tour of the country before H. J. Heinz took over ownership in 1898.letter to Mulvany from Goodyear Rubber Hose and Packing Co. 21 November 1898 in the Alice Muldoon Garvey Collection and Stenzel, Franz & Kathryn, Research Files for Unpublished book on western art, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT. Don Russell includes a very similar story about the sale of Cassily Adam’s painting to Anheuser-Busch p. 33 in ‘Custer’s Last’.
"Aughrim"
Around 1882, Mulvany secured a commission from the Irish Club of ChicagoBradfore Era, 3 July 1888 to paint the Battle of Aughrim – a tragic loss for the Irish in 1691. John began preliminary sketches in Ireland in 1882 and finished the piece in 1885.Dublin University Review August 1885 and The Nation 4 July 1885 This painting was presumed lost until it was offered for sale on eBay in 2010 by a dealer who thought it represented an American battle scene, purchased by an Irish art gallery, exhibited in Dublin and subsequently sold.
Politics
Mulvany was a lifelong member of the Irish secret society, Clan na Gael,Kentucky Irish-American May 1906 whose aim was Irish independence. He narrowly escaped imprisonment by the authorities while researching uniforms for his Aughrim painting at the Tower of London just days before it was bombed in the Fenian dynamite campaign in 1885.John Mulvany, Great Irish Painter, "Gaelic American" 3 April 1909 His involvement in internecine fighting within the Chicago branch in 1886 cost him the Aughrim commission and after his friend, Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin, was murdered in 1889 over financial irregularities with this same branch, Mulvany left Chicago for the west.Salida Daily Mail 15 July 1890 and Denver Republican 23 September 1890 He married Mrs. Ellen Welch in 1890.Marriage certificate and Omaha Daily Bee 28 Dec. 1890 and was divorced two years later in CO.Rocky Mt News 15 Nov. 1891 and 1 July 1892 He also had a romantic involvement with Lucy Deere,Wealth and Love Eluded Aging Sacramentan, So She Lives Alone with Memories, Sacramento Union, 31 Oct 1943 whom he met and contacted before his death in 1906."Model at Art Academy here was Cause of Noted Painter’s Suicide" undated Colorado Springs newspaper 1924
Mulvany painted in Oregon, San Francisco, Colorado and Kansas CityMorning Oregonian 28 Sept 1893, San Francisco The Morning Call, 15 Feb. 1894, Daily Mail 23 Oct. 1894, Kansas City Daily Journal 19 Feb 1895 before he finally headed East in 1896.Brooklyn Eagle 19 Jan 1896 Over his lifetime, he set up studios in 21 different cities, sketching, painting and moving on; often leaving finished works and at least one debt behind.
Brooklyn, New York years In 1897, at the age of 58, Mulvany finally settled in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn, New York, where he remained the rest of his lifeAlice Muldoon Garvey Collection. address as 381 Leonard St. with a studio at 133 Greenpoint Ave.Brooklyn Eagle 22 May 1906 He continued his artistic career painting six known major works,The Striker 1904, NY Times 23 May 1906, The Anarchists 1904, NY Sun 23 May 1906, Alice Muldoon’s Horse, Boccocio 8 Jan 1903 JM letter to MacBeth Gallery, The Boer Scouts, NY Sun 23 May 1906 and British Artists & War by Peter Harrington, 1993 as well as a duplicate of Custer’s Last Rally,Greenpoint Star 17 October 1900 seeking exhibition opportunities,letter to Lieber Co of 5 Oct. 1904 and Mac Beth Gallery Jan 1903 Archives of American Art painting portraits,New York Times 23, May 1906 and even sketching up until two weeks before his death.Brooklyn Star obit 23 May 1906
Mulvany died by drowning in early May 1906; the press declared it a suicide."Eccentric Artist a Suicide", New York Sun, 23 May 1906, 'Painter of ‘Last Rally’ drowned in East River…a waif…suicide…a drunken derelict, New York Times, 23 May 1906. He was 66 years old, suffering from throat cancer, a fatal disease at the time,Alice Muldoon Garvey Collection Envelope from Dr Dwyer leading throat specialists and Brooklyn Eagle 22 May 1906 vertigoGaelic American 2 June 1906 and possible effects of alcoholism. He is buried in Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York.cemetery records and Greenpoint Star 26 May 1906
Legacy Mulvany's contributions are several. He not only influenced William Merritt ChaseRoff, K. Metcalf, The Life and Art of William Merrit Chase, New York 1917 and Frederic Remington,"Kansas City, Cradle of Remington’s Art", Kansas City Star, 3 May 1925 he also brought an international perspective to American Western Art. In addition, his life reflects a broader Irish immigrant experience than typically recorded. Recent Irish scholarship has focused on Mulvany's accomplishments.[Desperate and Glorious: John Mulvany's Custer's Last Rally in Art History at the Crossroads of Ireland and the United States (Cynthia Fowler and Paula Murphy, eds,) Routledge, 2022. All Native, all our own and all a fact; John Mulvany and the Irish American Dream, Field Day Review 7, 2011] [The Great Irish painting that turned up on eBay, Irish Times, 2 October 2010] [John Mulvany, The Battle of Aughrim, Gorry Gallery Dublin, catalog 2010] Other noteworthy paintings include Love's Mirror and The Old Professor. Much of his work is unlocated.
References
External links
Missouri Remembers: Artists in Missouri through 1951