Identity:
D. Jerome Elwell was a landscape and marine painter.
Life:
Elwell exhibited at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters in 1903. Elwell was on friendly terms with JW throughout the 1880s and 1890s and reference is made to him in JW's letters from 1881 (#06694) to 1898 / 1901 (#07730). In August 1900 Elwell travelled to Domburg in Holland with JW, staying there together for a week. In this year Elwell also sat to JW for his portrait, Portrait of Jerome Elwell (YMSM 536).
Bibliography:
Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908; Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975, 3 vols., Madison, CT, 1999; Johnson, J., and Anna Greutzner, Dictionary of British Artists 1880-1940, Woodbridge, 1980; Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980.