Blackman, Walter (1847 – 1928)

New York artist, Walter Blackman, enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1863 and studied under Jean-Leon Gerome, Gerome Cabanel and Isidore Pils. At the time, a veritable who’s who of upcoming young American artists,Thomas Eakins, Fredric Arthur Bridgeman, Edwin Lord Weeks, Kenyon Cox, Julius L. Stewart and Mary Cassat were his fellow students.

He was a member of the Association of American Artists in Paris, where he exhibited extensively, as well as at the National Academy of Design in New York and the Chicago Art Institute from the 1860s into the 1880s and in London where he was invited to exhibit at the Royal Academy.

He had a long standing relationship with the young Italian girl who modeled for The Naughty Monkey. He had painted her on several occasions and The Naughty Monkey is an enlightening and comical glimpse into their developing relationship.