William Halsall

American (1841-1919)

Born in Kirkdale, England in 1841, Halsall settled in Boston early in his life. He studied fresco painting in 1860 with William Edward Norton before going to sea as a sailor, and serving in the Navy during the Civil War. Upon his return to Boston, he turned to marine painting, and resumed his artistic studies at the Lowell Institute. Halsall exhibited often in Boston, as well as at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Art Institute of Chicago. One of Halsall’s works, “The First Battle of the Ironclads,” hangs in the Capitol Building in Washington, DC.