Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, William Starkweather and his family immigrated to the United States in 1883, settling in New Haven, Connecticut. He attended the Art Students League in New York and the Academie Colarossi in Paris before going to Seville in 1903, where he spent three years studying under the Spanish Impressionist Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida, whose work he deeply admired.

He returned to New York about 1906, painting landscapes and urban scenes in which he conjoined Sorolla's bright colorism and fluid technique with his own powerful draftsmanship. An inveterate traveler, Starkweather painted in the northeast United States and eastern Canada, especially Eastport, Maine, and Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick, as well as in Europe and the Caribbean. He exhibited his oils and watercolors at the various national annuals with great success.

He taught at several institutions, including the Cooper Union School, Pratt Institute, and the Traphagen School before joining the faculty at Hunter College as an instructor of watercolor painting in 1936. Having served as an assistant curator at the Hispanic Society in New York from 1910 to 1916, Starkweather wrote frequently about Spanish art. He also authored essays and articles on various painters including John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, and Anthony van Dyck.

Biography courtesy of Roughton Galleries, www.antiquesandfineart.com/roughton