William Samuel Horton was an American Impressionist artist, celebrated for his radiant colour harmonies, expressive brushwork and fluid, dynamic painting style. Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he began painting secretly as a child despite his parents’ opposition - his determination so strong that even
when they destroyed his canvases and paints, he persisted. By his teens he was already drawing Indian reservations for North West Magazines.
He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League of New York, later continuing in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian under Jean-Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant, where he occupied Winterhalter’s former studio. Immersed in the Parisian avant-garde, he became acquainted with Monet, Pissarro, Whistler and Derain, and soon exhibited at the Paris Salon and Salon d’Automne. Critics often praised him as more French than American in his sensibilities.
Horton’s career spanned Europe and the U.S., though he preferred Paris and London as home. He returned to the same subjects repeatedly - snowy Alpine peaks, glowing Norwegian fjords, radiant sunsets, andmodern New York skylines - seeking to capture each changing atmosphere. Monet is even said to have praised him for his ability to paint winter landscapes with snow. Horton became very skilled at depicting warmer seascapes too; a Saturday Review critic admired his beach scenes, noting: ‘Mr. Horton has created a new world on the beaches and one sees nothing in these animated scenes of customary bathing pictures.’
Other reviewers compared his 'symphonic' colour to Turner, and in 1925 the Westminster Gazette wrote about him: ‘That he is a colourist, enamoured of the beauty of life, is seen in his scenes; classic in their arrangement and vibrating with colour as moderns comprehend it.’
Horton died in London in 1936; a major retrospective
followed at Galerie Charpentier, Paris (1939), introduced by critic Louis Vauxcelles. His paintings are now held in the Musée d’Orsay, Musée Carnavalet, Musée National d’Art Moderne, the National Museum of Stockholm, the Hunter Museum of American Art, Harvard Art Museums, and many others worldwide.
