Mulvany, John, 1839-1906

John Mulvany was born around 1839 to tenant farmers in Moynalty, Co. Meath. Because of the famine, he emigrated to the United States in 1851 and began working odd jobs in New York and New York City, including as a towpath drover on the Erie Canal and a messenger at the National Academy of Design (NAD). He soon enrolled as a student at the NAD, in 1859, and in 1861 moved to Chicago to work as a colorist for Irish newspapers in the city. During the American Civil War, he served in the Union Army and worked as a frontline sketch artist. While in Chicago, he became involved with Irish nationalist organizations the Fenian Brotherhood and Clan na Gael. These connections helped fund his further artistic education, with the Irish-American Club and Samuel B. Coale financing a trip to Europe beginning in 1869. He studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste in Munich under Karl von Piloty, earning a medal of honor for excellence in 1871. He also studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Antwerp, and in Paris and Amsterdam.

Mulvany returned to the United States in 1871, and began travelling around the west and midwestern portions of the country after his studio was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire that same year. His first major successful painting was The preliminary trial of a horse thief in 1876. In 1879, he began work on what would become his most famous work, a large-scale, glorifying depiction of General George Armstrong Custer and the US 7th Cavalry at their defeat by warriors of the Lakota and Cheyenne peoples under the leadership of Tasunka Witko ("Crazy Horse") at the Little Bighorn River on June 25, 1876. Mulvany visited the battlefield to sketch the terrain, interviewed battle veterans on the Lakota reservation, obtained portraits and descriptions from military associates of Custer and his officers, and researched Native American and US Cavalry dress, weaponry and tactics. The resulting painting, Custer's last rally, finished in 1881 and measuring 20 x 11 feet, toured the United States and Europe and contributed to the remembrance of the battle among white Americans as a heroic "last stand."

Following the success of Custer's last rally, Mulvany travelled to Ireland in 1883 to paint The battle of Aughrim, which commemorated the Irish soldiers in the decisive 1691 battle of the Williamite war. Mulvany finished the painting and exhibited it in Dublin in 1885. Upon returning to the United States, however, he discovered that his funding and support had dried up due to internal conflict in Clan na Gael. Mulvany continued to sustain himself as an artist, although barely, by painting more scenes of the American Civil War and commissioned portraits. His most notable Civil War piece was Sheridan's ride from Winchester, depicting General Philip Sheridan during the 1864 Shenandoah Valley campaign. His portraits included Brigham Young, Robert Emmet, and Tatanka Iyotanka ("Sitting Bull"). He set up studios in twenty-one different cities across the United States, including in California, Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, and Oregon, often moving suddenly and leaving behind debts.

Mulvany married Ellen Welch in 1890, and they divorced two years later in Colorado. He also had a romantic involvement with Lucy Deere, whom he met around 1880. In 1897, Mulvany moved to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York, where he lived with his half-sister, Alice Muldoon. His working opportunities continued to decline, and he suffered from alcoholism, vertigo, and throat cancer. He died by drowning in the East River in early May, 1906, likely by suicide.