George P. A. Healy: His Character

"Mrs. Freida Schiff Warburg"
by George Healy

George P. A. Healy's daughter, Marie, also wrote a biography of her father. In the concluding chapters she remembered his character: "The first trait in my father which stands out is the extraordinary power of work, which in his case lasted from early youth to old age. As a boy, without a master, he taught himself to paint, simply by painting from morning to night. Still very young, he had to provide for his family - and he did it. All through life, care of others was an incentive to labor, but he really needed no incentive. 

Work was his life, his joy, his pride. He always rose with the dawn and generally long before. During the silent hours he wrote his letters; he 'cleared the decks for action,' as he himself said. Then he made use of every moment of daylight to paint, with or without a model. We have no record of the number of portraits painted during his first year in Chicago. But from his diary, which he only kept quite late in life, we learn that from November, 1880, to May, 1881, he produced forty-six portraits. 

In the midst of his incessant labor he was often so overcome with fatigue as to be unable to sleep. From his youth upward he had suffered with his eyes, which yet must have been remarkably strong to have withstood the strain he put upon them. 

And no man was ever more unhappy during enforced holidays. He liked to travel occasionally, but only where he could find picture galleries; and in these he would single out one or two masterpieces and remain in contemplation before them for hours.

I have elsewhere spoken of my father's kindness and generosity, or his happiness when he could help others. As he himself was truth and honesty in person, he could not conceive treachery or untruthfulness in others - or forgive the offenders. He was, from the first to the last, the most devoted and loving of husbands. The mutual tenderness of my parents, their absolute confidence in each other, was a subject of admiration - sometimes of wonder - to others. When the old painter at last let drop his brushes, he was content if our mother sat by his side, restless if she left him. And when he died she wandered about like a lost soul, longing for the end."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life of George P. A. Healy" by Marie Healy Bigot.)