1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Low, Will Hicok

LOW, WILL HICOK (1853–), American artist and writer on art, was born at Albany, New York, on the 31st of May 1853. In 1873 he entered the atelier of J. L. Gérôme in the École des Beaux Arts at Paris, subsequently joining the classes of Carolus-Duran, with whom he remained until 1877. Returning to New York, he became a member of the Society of American Artists in 1878 and of the National Academy of Design in 1890. His pictures of New England types, and illustrations of Keats, brought him into prominence. Subsequently he turned his attention to decoration, and executed panels and medallions for the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York, a panel for the Essex County Court House, Newark, New Jersey, panels for private residences and stained-glass windows for various churches, including St Paul’s Methodist Episcopal Church, Newark, N.J. He was an instructor in the schools of Cooper Union, New York, in 1882–1885, and in the school of the National Academy of Design in 1889–1892. Mr Low, who is known to a wider circle as the friend of R. L. Stevenson, published some reminiscences, A Chronicle of Friendships, 1873–1900 (1908). In 1909 he married Mary (Fairchild), formerly the wife of the sculptor MacMonnies.