Like many American painters who started their careers in the late 19th century, William McGregor Paxton began his studies in the U.S. — in his case at the Cowles Art School, where he studied with Dennis Miller Bunker — but traveled to Europe to pursue further study. There he attended the Académie Julian and the École Des Beaux-Arts, where his instructors included Jean-Léon Gérôme.

Paxton was a founding member of The Guild of Boston Artists, along with Frank Weston Benson and Edmund Charles Tarbell.

Though I don’t know much about their actual influence on one another, I find comparisons of Paxton and Tarbell particularly interesting. Both were students of Gérôme, both painted exquisite portraits, particularly of women, and both were fascinated with the work of Johannes Vermeer. Both Paxton and Tarbell produced portraits in the context of room interiors infused with soft light that distinctly show the the Delft master’s influence.

Paxton, even more than Tarbell, was noted as a portraitist and for his figurative work. He experimented with degrees of focus and softness of edges in an unusual way, partly out if his study of Vermeer’s method and use of optical devices.

Though he was not known for still life, I particularly like Paxton’s handling of vases, jars and other still life objects within his room interiors. William Paxton was married to painter Elizabeth Okie Paxton, who was noted as a still life painter.

The painting, Girl Sweeping (images above, bottom) is here in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy of The Fine Arts, where I have been struck by its quiet beauty on numerous occasions. It’s interesting to compare it to a painting in the Indianapolis Museum of Art in which Paxton took on the same subject.

[Note: some of the images in the resources below should be considered NSFW.]

Thomas R. Dunlay is a painter from Boston who, on finding the instruction offered in the art school in which he initially enrolled lacking in the traditional methods he sought, turned to individual instruction — first with Boston painter Robert Douglas Hunter, and then with Hunter’s teacher, the renowned R.H. Ives Gammell.

Dunlay paints brilliant, sun-infused landscapes, lyrically atmospheric cityscapes, and figurative works that, to my eye, show the influence of the great “Boston School” painters like Frank W. Benson, Edmund Tarbell and William McGregor Paxton, (who were in turn, Gammell’s teachers).

Dunlay’s oils appear at times to have a fascinating textural quality, almost suggestive of pastel, but it’s difficult to tell in the relatively small images on his website.

Unfortunately, his website is devoted primarily to the sale of prints, so there is little information on his technique, or the size and materials of the originals. There are a few examples of originals on the Lilypad Gallery website. There is also an article on South Boston Today.

Dunlay teaches workshops in Maine and Nantucket.