Biography:
William Stone was born in Brooklyn and lived his adult life in Boston and Cape Cod. He is known for his luminist marine landscapes, mostly of his beloved New England and in particular the environs of Cape Cod.
In addition to his art studies and leadership roles at the Boston Art Students’ Association (later known as the Copley Society) and the School of Drawing and Painting at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Stone traveled to Paris to learn from the masters, as did many serious art students of his day. In Paris, Stone studied under Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre likely at the Académie Julian where it was known that Boulanger and Lefebvre taught as a team.
In 1887, Stone married fellow artist, Alice Hinds who was an instructor at the School of Drawing and Painting at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She too studied in Paris, under the painter, Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret. The Stones kept a studio in Boston at the Grundman Studios affiliated with the Copley Society. In keeping with their love of the coast, they bought a property on the Bass River in South Yarmouth, MA in 1893 that included an 18th-century windmill known as the Judah Baker Windmill. The grounds and the windmill were popular subjects in their work. Today, the Judah Baker Windmill is restored and open to the public.
According to William Stone’s great-granddaughter, he won Honorable Mention at the Paris Exposition (date unconfirmed). He exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.