Rolshoven's ancestors were goldsmiths to the treasuries of the city of Cologne, Germany. His father worked on the altar of Cologne Cathedral and then emigrated to Detroit where he established himself as a jeweler.
Young Rolshoven came to New York in 1876 where he was first employed by Baldwin, Sexton & Peterson as a goldsmith, attended Cooper Union, and studied privately with Ernst Plassman, sculptor to Cornelius Vanderbilt.
The following year he went to Dusseldorf where he studied under Hugo Crola; that summer he traveled to Polling where he met and studied with Frank Duveneck. That fall he studied in Munich under Ludwig Loefftz at the Academy and privately with Duveneck. [formed close friendship with Oliver Dennet Grover; two were together through rest of European stay; supposedly returned to Am. with Grover in 1887; Grover married Rolshoven's sister] Rolshoven then followed Duveneck to Italy where he remained until 1897 except for one return trip to Detroit in 1885. In 1887, in Florence, he married Anna Eliza Chickering, of Boston (d. 1897).
That same year he went to Paris where he studied at the Academie Julian under Tony Robert-Fleury and Bougereau. His work "Hamlet and His Mother" was hung in the Paris Salon of 1888. In 1899 he won a silver medal at the Universal Exposition for a Self-Portrait which is now in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. He conducted a life class in Paris (1890-95) and in London (1896-1902).
Continuing to spend summers in Florence, Rolshoven settled there permanently in 1903, and in 1905 he purchased and restored a castello on the Viale Michelangelo which he maintained as his principal residence.
In 19l5 he married Harriet Haynes Blazo and the couple spent the duration of the first world war in Santa Fe and Taos, and Rolshoven became a member of the Taos Society of Artists in 19l7. His most ambitious work from this period "To the Land of Sip-O-Phey", a 20' wide canvas, depicts a heroic procession of Indian tribes on horseback towards a threatening storm, symbolizing the tragic passing of the race.
Exhibitions of his work were held at the Art Institute of Chicago and in Cincinnati, 1905; pictures painted in North Africa in Detroit, 19l2; pictures painted in Italy and Tunisia at Reinhardt Gallery, New York, 19l4; New Mexico pictures in Detroit, 1923; portraits and landscapes, many done in the Near East at Reinhardt's, 1924; elegant society portraits at Grand Central Art Galleries, 1928; sketches done in and around his Florentine villa at Grand Central, 1929; a memorial exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts in 193l; and in 1954 a large retrospective at the Grand Central Art Galleries.
Rolshoven was an associate member of the National Society of Paris, a member of the Secession Society of Munich, and the National Arts Club.
The Julius Rolshoven Memorial Gallery at the University of New Mexico was built with a donation from Rolshoven's widow and houses a collection of his western paintings.
