Howard Helmick (1845 – 28 April 1907) was an American painter, etcher, designer and illustrator, who was well known for his oil on canvas paintings.
In 1881, a set of 'Six portraits of T. Carlyle', etched in a rather naive style by Helmick, were published by the Etcher's Society in Arundell Street, Haymarket.
Helmick and Whistler’s mutual interests and involvements in such etchings, and print publications, provided them with points of contact and likely brought them together.
Helmick's friendship with Whistler increased his fame, and his paintings would demand high prices at London's Royal Academy.
[3][4] Helmick died at his residence, 3259 N Street NW, after a long period of ill health on 28 April 1907 in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., at the age of 62.
He was the foremost artist among a small set of painters focusing on rural Irish culture, and was hailed by contemporary critics as ‘an American Wilkie’.
His surviving paintings on the Catholic peasantry, their households, priests, doctors, and the arrangement of their marriages give an insight into his sympathetic and realistic attitude and viewpoint.
His paintings tended to be intricately detailed when depicting the items lying around Irish households, such as the cutlery, the crockery and the flax spinning wheels.