Walter Satterlee

Walter Satterlee was sixty-four at death and had been of our household for thirty-eight years, admitted here by right of his pleasant personality and the promise he gave as a painter, at twenty-six years: this promise he amply fulfilled, alike in the fields of genre and landscape. He was born in Brooklyn, was a graduate of Columbia, and received his higher education in art during several years’ residence in Paris and Rome. No department of that art was foreign to his skill; he was even a fine illustrator of books, an interpreter of others’ thoughts, and a writer full of originality. In Europe he found subjects in the remoter fields of both nature and human life; at home he was likewise attracted to the things not near at hand. His first American ancestor fought in the French and Indian War, and died in the massacre at Wyoming—perhaps it was atavism that led him to study the American savage and portray him, as he did, so admirably in wildwood scenes.

His social gifts were much appreciated and he was a member of other societies than this where artists foregather, receiving many marks of distinction from those of his own profession. Of recent years he was not so often among us, but he appreciated his membership highly and was at home here by reason of tastes, temperament, and long possession.

William Milligan Sloane
1909 Century Association Yearbook