William Joseph McCloskey was born in Philadelphia, PA on Oct. 5, 1859. McCloskey studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts under Christian Schussele and Thomas Eakins during 1877-82.

In the fall of 1882 he began teaching life drawing and painting at the Denver Academy of Art. At that school he met his future wife, Alberta Binford. The couple established a portrait studio in Los Angeles in the Child's Grand Opera House in 1884. He painted in England and Paris in the 1890s and later in Salt Lake City, New York, and San Francisco. In the early 1920s he was the official portrait painter of the American Legion in Los Angeles, but retired to the home of his daughter in Oregon about 1924. After returning to California, he die

Source: Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
American Art Annual 1903; Painting and Sculpture in Los Angeles, 1900-45; City Directory; California Historical Society; Splitter; Southern California Artists (Nancy Moure); Painters of the Humble Truth; Death record; American Art Review, Oct. 1994.

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