William Valentine

William Valentine (1798–1849) was a portrait painter and daguerreotypist in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Life Born in 1798 in Whitehaven, England, he migrated to Halifax in 1818. In 1822 he married Susannah Smith there, with whom he had two daughters. He married again in 1830 to Sarah Sellon. He died on 26 December 1849, and was buried at Camp Hill Cemetery, Halifax.

Career

From 1819 he worked as a portrait painter, teacher, and painter of signs and architectural ornaments. In his early career, Valentine also worked as a house painter in periods that saw less commissions. He filled a void left by portrait painter Robert Field who had practiced in Halifax from 1808 to 1816. Valentine painted his subjects in a naturalistic, plain style distinct from that of contemporary European portraitists.

In the 1830s and '40s he apparently worked in various places in Atlantic Canada, as evidenced by advertisements placed in Charlottetown, Saint John, and St. John's. Alexander Keith and William Black. Although some paintings were destroyed in a studio fire shortly before his death, many of his works are preserved at the National Gallery of Canada, the Library and Archives Canada, the New Brunswick Museum, and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

Gallery