William McGregor Paxton

Raised in Massachusetts, Paxton attended the Cowles Art School before traveling to Paris where he studied under Jean-Léon Gérôme at the École des Beaux-Arts. Returning to the United States, Paxton studied at Cowles again, where he met his wife Elizabeth Vaughan Okie. From 1906 to 1913 he taught at the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston. Paxton painted meticulously polished surfaces in the French academic tradition and is best known for portraits and interior scenes with women, often modeled by his wife.