William F. Cogswell (July 15, 1819 – December 24, 1903)[1] was an American portrait painter, and printmaker.

[3] In the 1830s, while working in a color factory in Buffalo, New York, he taught himself to paint.

[3] Upon his return to New York City in November 1850 (via the Panama Isthmus), he turned his sketches of San Francisco into large scale panorama painting.

[3] His life sized oil painting portrait of artist Karl Ferdinand Wimar won first prize at the St. Louis Fair.

[6] The Bishop Museum (Honolulu), the Butler Institute of American Art (Youngstown, Ohio), the Crocker Art Museum (Sacramento, California), the Joslyn Art Museum (Omaha, Nebraska), the National Portrait Gallery (Washington, DC), the New York Historical Society, the Ohio Historical Society (Columbus, Ohio), the Haggin Museum (Stockton, California), the Indiana State Museum (Indianapolis), the White House, the Union League Club of Chicago, and the Mabel Tainter Theater in Menomonie, Wisconsin, are among the public collections holding paintings by William Cogswell.