William Aiken Walker (American/South Carolina)

William Aiken Walker (American/South Carolina, 1838-1921) , "Portrait of a Young Girl", hand-painted photograph, signed lower left, 6 1/8 in. x 4 1/4 in., framed. Note: The camera played an important role in William Aiken Walker’s work. Used primarily as a documentary tool, photography allowed him to attempt a wider variety of subjects than he could have captured through sketching alone and provided a valuable reference to the minute details of life that appealed to the artist. Walker’s output was undoubtedly greatly increased by his undertakings in photography. Walker himself was photographed in Charleston at Quimby and Company in 1869, and he painted over the portrait to create what was coined in the period an “oilette.” Quimby and Company also sold Walker’s oilettes in their studio, and this method of enhancing a photograph would stay with the artist during his many travels thereafter.
Walker photographed many of the children of his friends and acquaintances and painted over them to create oilettes, with several documented examples. One notable work occurred when Walker visited John Orr Bradfield, a native of Baton Rouge who resided at Willow Glenn Plantation across the River from Vicksburg. Walker photographed Bradfield’s son, John Jenkins, around 1885 and made a painting over it to show the little boy fishing at Grant’s Canal near the plantation. While the identity of the sitter in the work offered here is unknown, Walker’s deft hand in the brushwork and surrounding landscape is unmistakable, making it a rare example of this type of Walker’s work. To be included in John Fowler’s catalogue raisonné on the artist. Ref.: Trovaioli, August P. and Roulhac B. Toledano. William Aiken Walker: Southern Genre Painter. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, 2008