Science & invention / Visual art
William Henry Holmes
1846–1933 · anthropologist, archaeologist, artist
Smithsonian anthropologist, survey artist of the American West and director of the national art gallery, who spent his last year with his son in Royal Oak.
- Born
Harrison County, Ohio- Died
Royal Oak, Michigan
aged 86- Also known as
- W. H. Holmes
- Detroit years
- 1932–1933
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Holmes was born in Ohio in 1846 and trained as an artist, and his drawing skill took him west as an illustrator and geologist with the Hayden survey of the 1870s, where he sketched Yellowstone and the Colorado Plateau; his panoramas of the Grand Canyon remain celebrated examples of scientific illustration. He turned to archaeology and anthropology, studying ancient pottery and stone tools, and became chief of the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnology and head curator of anthropology at the U.S. National Museum. From 1920 to 1932 he directed the National Gallery of Art, the collection now known as the Smithsonian American Art Museum. When he retired in 1932 he went to live with his son in Royal Oak, north of Detroit, and he died there in April 1933.
Highlights
- Artist and geologist with the Hayden survey of the American West
- Grand Canyon panoramas for Clarence Dutton's 1882 survey report
- Chief of the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnology
- Director of the National Gallery of Art (today's Smithsonian American Art Museum), 1920–1932
- Died in Royal Oak, Michigan, 1933