William McCloskey was born in 1859 in Philadelphia. His paintings were extremely detailed and realistic, and did not yield to the more popular Impressionist and Barbizon styles at the time. McCloskey is famous for painting portraits and still lifes, most notably oranges wrapped in paper. Arguably, his most renowned painting is Oranges in Tissue Paper (de Young Museum). McCloskey’s known works number fewer than one hundred and therefore make McCloskey’s paintings of great curiosity to collectors.

Little is known about the Philadelphia-born artist’s childhood. The first record of McCloskey’s interest in art was his enrollment in 1877 to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he and his classmates, including Alexander Calder and Thomas Anshutz, were instructed by Thomas Eakins. By 1882, McCloskey had moved to Denver, where he met his wife, the artist Alberta Binford, while teaching at the newly founded Denver Academy of Art. The couple frequently moved, maintaining a shared studio in Los Angeles, New York, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Paris, and London, while travelling to countless other cities for commissions, which he painted in the trompe l’oeil style.