James Carroll Beckwith painted this superb portrait of his friend and fellow artist William Walton in 1886 (left). If Walton posed for his portrait in his own studio, the evidence on the wall behind him suggests that this little-known painter worked in the style of the American impressionists and, when he wasn’t working, fenced. Beckwith’s composition, especially the geometric bands of empty wall behind his subject, shows the influence of the Japanese prints that fascinated American artists of the time.