- Term
James Walker
- Alternate Term
Walker, James
- Occupation/Role
artist
- Nationality/Ethnicity
English
- Remarks
James Walker was born in 1819, in Northamptonshire, England. In 1823, his family moved to Albany, New York. Upon leaving home in his early twenties, he went first to New Orleans and then to Mexico where he became interested in the Spanish-American culture. During the war between United States and Mexico (1846-1848) Walker was briefly imprisoned in Mexico but managed to escape. Eventually, he became an interpreter for General Winfield Scott in the U.S. Army, and during that time began sketching battle scenes. After the war, he established studios in New York and Washington, D.C., where he became well known as a painter of American battle scenes. He completed a number of government-commissioned works, one of which was placed in the Senate. In the early 1870s he opened a studio in San Francisco focusing his interest on Mexican culture of early California. He died in 1889, in Watsonville, California.