Edwin Tryon Billings

Billings was born November 20, 1824, to wheelwright Ira Billings and Eunice Tryon of Massachusetts.George Sheldon. [https://books.google.com/books?id=zmwWAAAAYAAJ History of Deerfield, Massachusetts. Vol. 2.] Deerfield, Mass.: E.A. Hall & co., 1896. Page 84. He lived in Montgomery, Alabama, intermittently c. 1850-1859;E.T. Billings Park, age 27, male, birthplace Massachusetts. cf. {{cite web |title=1850 Federal Census, Montgomery County, Alabama. |url=http://files.usgwarchives.net/al/montgomery/census/1850/city/pgw3-14.txt |accessdate= 2010-10-02 }} and in Worcester, Massachusetts, c. 1854-1856.Worcester directory, 1856 He "first visited Worcester in 1854. Billings painted several important Worcester residents, including John Davis and Stephen Salisbury. His work hung in many public buildings including the Worcester County Courthouse and Mechanics Hall."{{cite web |url=http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Exhibitions/Portraits/calvinwillard.htm |title=Calvin Willard |author=American Antiquarian Society |accessdate=2010-10-02 }}

He moved to Boston in the 1860s, working in the Studio Building on Tremont Street c. 1864-1891.Boston Directory. 1864Boston Almanac. 1865, 1875, 1888, 1889, 1891 In the 1874 exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association Billings showed several paintings, including "Child and Kitten," and "Children and Rabbits."12th exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, at Faneuil and Quincy halls, Boston, September and October, 1874. Boston: Mudge, 1874 His work also appeared in the 1887 National Academy of Design exhibit.The Theatre, v.3, no.7, May 2, 1887

Billings married Frances E. Keller in 1867. Friends included painter George Fuller, with whom he travelled in the southern United States.Sarah Burns. A Study of the Life and Poetic Vision of George Fuller (1822-1884). American Art Journal, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Autumn, 1981)Sarah Burns. Images of Slavery: George Fuller's Depictions of the Antebellum South. American Art Journal, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Summer, 1983)Helen Mary Knowlton. Art-life of William Morris Hunt. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1899 Among Billings' possessions was a copy of Walt Whitman's Two Rivulets, annotated by Whitman, and notably auctioned for a relatively high sum in 1909.Sell a book Whitman set up: poet's own copy of Two Rivulets brings $137.50 at auction. New York Times, Nov. 7, 1909."... A remarkably interesting Walt Whitman Association work, his own copy of Two Rivulets, of which only one hundred copies were issued, and for which he helped set the type in the printing office at Camden, N. J. in 1876. This copy contains many alterations and additions in the author's autograph for a second edition of Two Rivulets, which edition, however, never appeared. Whitman presented this copy to Sidney Morse, the sculptor, and later it passed into the possession of E.T. Billings, the Boston artist. It brought $137.50." cf. "Rare editions sold: J. Chester Chamberlain Library." American Art News, Vol. 8, No. 5 (Nov. 13, 1909)

Portrait subjects included:

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• Josiah Bartlett, a founding father{{Cite book |last=Maier | url=https://archive.org/details/oldrevolutionari0000maie/page/133 |first=Pauline |title=The old revolutionaries : political lives in the age of Samuel Adams |date=1982 |publisher=Vintage Books |isbn=978-0-394-75073-6 |location=New York |page=133}}
• Ira Billings, father of E. T. BillingsCatalogue of the collection of relics in Memorial Hall, Deerfield, Mass., 2nd ed. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, 1908
• James Freeman Clarke{{cite web |title=Board of Trustees - Former Trustees: James Freeman Clarke |author=Boston Public Library |url=http://www.bpl.org/general/trustees/clarke.htm |accessdate=2010-10-02 |archive-date=2010-11-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101120220505/http://bpl.org/general/trustees/clarke.htm |url-status=dead }}
• Alpheus CrosbyGeorge Hill Evans. Catalogue of portraits and other works of art in the gallery of Dartmouth College. 1901. [https://books.google.com/books?id=G4oVAAAAYAAJ Google books]
• Thomas Russell CrosbyEvans. 1901
• John DavisPaine. Portraits and busts in possession of the American Antiquarian Society, and of other associations in Worcester, Mass. New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Jan. 1876{{cite web |title=American Antiquarian Society |url=http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Exhibitions/Portraits/johndavis.htm |accessdate= 2010-10-02 }}
• George Fuller"The South Gallery." National Academy Notes including the Complete Catalogue of the Spring Exhibition, National Academy of Design, No. 7 (1887)
• Helen Eliza Benson Garrison, wife of W. L. Garrison[http://emuseum.nyhistory.org/code/emuseum.asp New York Historical Society] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100620142903/http://emuseum.nyhistory.org/code/emuseum.asp |date=2010-06-20 }} Retrieved 2010-10-02
• William Lloyd GarrisonWords of Garrison. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1905
• Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.{{cite web |title=Harvard Medical School Faculty and Staff Portrait Collection: D-W, c. 1774-2001: A Finding Aid |author=Harvard University |url=http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~med00049 |accessdate= 2010-10-02}}
• Abraham Lincoln
• Maria MitchellMargaret W. Rossiter. Women scientists in America: struggles and strategies to 1940. JHU Press, 1984
• Andrew Preston PeabodyEdward J. Young. Memoir of Rev. Andrew P. Peabody. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Second Series, Vol. 11, 1896
• Abigail Lord Rogers
• Stephen Salisbury
• Daniel Webster
• Calvin Willard

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;Portraits by E. T. Billings

Image:William Lloyd Garrison by Edwin T Billings NYHistoricalSociety.png|Portrait of W. L. Garrison, 19th century (New York Historical society)

Image:1889 OWHolmes byETBillings.png|Portrait of O. W. Holmes Sr., 19th century

Image:Charles Gideon Putnam MD ca1860s by Edwin T Billings HistoricNewEngland.png|Portrait of Charles Gideon Putnam, MD, c. 1860s (Historic New England)

Image:DanielWebster by Edwin T Billings.png|Portrait of Daniel Webster, 19th century

Image:Isaac Adams by Edwin T Billings.png|Portrait of Isaac Adams, 19th century

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{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

• George C Groce. New-York Historical Society's dictionary of artists in America. NY: 1957
• Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American painters, sculptors & engravers.
• Edwin C Pancoast. Billings of Boston—Yankee portrait painter : a new look at the life, times and work of Edwin Tryon Billings (1824-1893) and his early association with photography. Chevy Chase, Md.: Pancoast, 1990.
• Obituary. Boston Daily Globe, Oct 21, 1893

{{commons category|Edwin T. Billings}}

• [http://siris-artinventories.si.edu Smithsonian] Art Inventories Catalog. "Billings, Edwin Tryon, 1824-1893, painter"
• Preservation Worcester. [https://web.archive.org/web/20110727184559/http://www.preservationworcester.org/pages/tourmain.html Main Street Virtual Tour]

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Category:1824 births

Category:1893 deaths

Category:Painters from Boston

Category:19th century in Boston

Category:American portrait painters

Category:Cultural history of Boston

Category:19th-century American painters

Category:American male painters

Category:19th-century American male artists