Howard Helmick was born in Ohio, in 1840 and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He moved to Paris in 1854 and trained alongside Henry Baconat the École des Beaux-Artsin Paris, devoting himself to genre painting. He moved to London in 1872 and from there regularly visited Ireland. Best known for his Irish genre studies, and paintings of Irish households, Helmick was the foremost artist among a small set of painters who focused on rural Irish culture, and was hailed by contempo
rary critics as an American Wilkie.
Throughout his time in London, he regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, the Royal Society of Painters-Etchers and Engravers, the Society of British Artists, and the Royal Society of Artists in Birmingham. He also exhibited work at the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, the Royal Hibernian Academy, the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and Manchester City Art Gallery. He was elected a member of Society of British Artists in 1879, and the Royal Society of Painters-Etchers and Engravers in 1881. He died at home, in Georgetown, Washington D.C., in 1907.
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