Like his compatriot and fellow Academician, Thomas Hovenden, William Magrath was trained at the Cork School of Design in Ireland. In response to a request for biographical information on his election to membership in the National Academy, the artist stated that this was the only education he had received, adding, "This matter of publishing who one studied with is like getting astride of another man's shoulders and crowing cock-a-doodle-doo." Nevertheless, records show that Magrath was a student in the Academy school where he registered in the antique class in 1865-66. He had come to the United States ten years before and worked as a sign painter in New York. Soon, however, Magrath was known as a genre painter specializing in Irish peasant scenes.
In 1879, he moved to England for four years where appreciation of his work was reported to surpass that of the American public ("William Magrath," 70). Magrath returned to open a studio in Washington, D.C., where he remained several years. By 1894, he was back in New York. In later years, he moved often: to Staten Island in 1909, to two homes in New Jersey, and finally to England in 1914.
