William Arbor-Brown Kirkpatrick was a prominent Boston artist, born in London, England in 1880. His mother was an American, and he studied in London at the City Guilds and in Laurens, Paris. He exhibited at the Paris Salon before coming to the United States. Early in his career he executed calendar paintings for the Gerlach Barklow Company. Some of these calendar paintings depicted World War One soldiers. By 1903, he met Frank W. Benson and Edmund C. Tarbell and was introduced to the Boston school painters who trained with Benson and Tarbell at the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston.
Kirkpatrick was highly influenced by the painterly techniques of Benson and Tarbell and especially appreciate their admiration and devotion to the genre works of Jan Vermeer (Dutch master) and Old Master figure painters.
Kirkpatrick made a living as an easel painter. In 1906 he moved to Waldoboro, Maine with his wife Marion Powers, herself an accomplished painter that excelled in vibrant still lifes and large-scale murals. They also maintained a studio in Boston and a summer studio in Friendship, Maine. Kirkpatrick was a member of the Boston Art Club and he exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1919. From 1917-1930, he frequently held exhibits at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
