STILLMAN, WILLIAM JAMES (1828-1901), American painter and journalist, was born at Schenectady (N. Y.), June I, 1828. He graduated at Union college, Schenectady, in 1848.
He studied art under Frederick E. Church and early in 185o went to England, where he fell so much under the influence of Rossetti and Millais that on his return home in the same year he speedily became known as the "American Pre-Raphaelite." He studied art under Yvon in Paris, returned to the United States and de voted himself to landscape painting on Upper Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks and in New York City, where he started the Crayon. When it failed for want of funds, Stillman removed to Cambridge, Massachusetts. He returned to England, and after wards painted with Ruskin in Switzerland. He was in Normandy in 1861 when the American Civil War broke out. His health was too weak for him to serve in the Northern ranks and he was appointed United States consul in Rome. In 1865 he resigned,
but immediately afterwards he was appointed to Crete. He was an editor of Scribner's Magazine for a short time. When in London lived with D. G. Rossetti. When the insurrection of 1875 broke out in Hercegovina he went there as a correspondent of The Times, and his letters from the Balkans aroused so much interest that the British government was induced to lend its countenance to Montenegrin aspirations. In 1877-83 he served as the corre spondent of The Times at Athens; in 1886-98 at Rome. After his retirement he lived in Surrey, where he died on July 6, 1901. He wrote The Cretan Insurrection On the Track of Ulysses (1888), Billy and Hans (1897) and Francesco Crispi 0890.
See his Autobiography of a Journalist (Boston, 1901).