1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beckwith, James Carroll

BECKWITH, JAMES CARROLL (1852–  ), American portrait-painter, was born at Hannibal, Missouri, on the 23rd of September 1852. He studied in the National Academy of Design, New York City, of which he afterwards became a member, and in Paris (1873–1878) under Carolus Duran. Returning to the United States in 1878, he gradually became a prominent figure in American art. He took an active part in the formation of the Fine Arts Society, and was president of the National Free Art League, which attempted to secure the repeal of the American duty on works of art. Among his portraits are those of W. M. Chase (1882), of Miss Jordan (1883), of Mark Twain, T. A. Janvier, General Schofield and William Walton. He decorated one of the domes of the Manufactures Building at the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893.