Elisha Kent Kane Wetherill, painter, etcher and WWI veteran, was born in Philadelphia, PA on September 1, 1874 and died in Aberdeen, NC on March 9, 1929 as a result of injuries received in WWI. Wetherill's subjects included portraits, views of New York, seascapes, landscapes, nudes, mountains, villages, harbors and rivers. New York City (East 23rd Street and Fifth Avenue), Phoenicia, NY, and Aberdeen, NC are places Wetherill resided and maintained studios.
Wetherill's studies took place in America and abroad. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania; the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts under Thomas Anshutz (1851-1912) in the late 1890s and from 1906 to 1909; Jean Paul Laurens (1838-1921) in 1902: and in Paris with James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903).
Elisha Wetherill held memberships with the National Academy of Design, Associate 1927; Salmagundi Club, NYC; Allied Artists of America, NYC; Brooklyn Society of Etchers, NY; and Philadelphia Sketch Club. He exhibited work at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (annual) from 1906 to 1910, and 1921 to 1927; the Corcoran Gallery biennials (six times) from 1907 to 1926 In 1915 Wetherill received a gold medal at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco and, in 1926, he won a silver medal at the Sesqui-Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. He also exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the National Academy of Design in 1925.
Wetherill's work can be viewed in the collections of the Whistler House Museum of Art in Lowell, MA; the Philadelphia Art Club; and the Luxembourg Museum in Paris.
