Henry Inman was brought to New York City by his parents in 1812. Two years later, having displayed considerable talent in drawing, he was apprenticed to the renowned portraitist John Wesley Jarvis. For the following seven years he studied assidiously under Jarvis and by the end of his apprenticeship he was painting the backgrounds and draperies for Jarvis' portraits. By the winter of 1822 Inman had commenced his career as a portrait and miniature painter in Albany, N.Y. and in the following year he returned to New York City and married Jane Riker O'Brien. In New York, Inman was quickly recognized as an aspiring portriatist and he was applauded as the best miniaturist since Edward Green Malbone. Minature painting, however, offered littled promise to Inman and in 1824 he entered and agreement with his pupil Thomas Seir Cummings whereby Inman executed commissions for full scale portraits, and Cummings, the miniatures. By 1826 Inman had become a major figure in New York's artistic community and was, consequently, immediately elected a founding member of the National Academy of Design.
During the following years Inman became the leading portraitist working in New York. Although his reputation and livelihood revolved around his success as a portraitist, he also proved himself a proficient landscape and genre painter and produced such works as Rip Van Winkle (location unknown), Washington's Tomb at Mount Vernon (Fisher Gallery, University of Southern California), and Muble the Peg (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). From its founding Inman was an active figure at the National Academy. He exhibited his paintings at its annual exhibition from 1826 until his death and served as its vice-president from 1827 to 1831 and from 1838 to 1844. During Samuel F.B. Morse's second European sojourn he was the Academy's acting president, and consequently, was responsible for its direction during some of its early and most critical years.
In 1830 Inman was commissioned to paint a full-length portrait of Martin Van Buren (City of New York, City Hall Portrait Colllection). Exhibited at the National Academy in the same year, this portrait gave the artist national recognition. In the following year Inman moved to the outskirts of Philadelphia. During the following three years, until he returned to New York, he played an active role in Philadelphia's artistic community. Upon returning to New York, Inman resumed his position as the city's leading portraitist and provided instruction to such artists as Thomas F.L. Boyle, Daniel Huntington, and Edward Mooney. In 1837 Congress commissioned him to paint The Emigration of Daniel Boone to Kentucky for the rotunda of the Capitol, but his activity as a portraitist kept him from ever completing the work. In 1844 he travelled to England and spent the following year associating with his colleages and painting portraits. Upon returning to New York, however, his health began to fail and he eventually succumbed to complications of asthma and an enlarged heart. After his death Inman was eulogized at the Academy's annual meeting of May 13, 1846:
When a name like that of Henry Inman is stricken from the living record, we must deeply feel that there is left a vacancy that can not easily be supplied, nor is that vacancy apparent only in our ranks, it is perceived and felt throughout the community. But, it is not my purpose here to attempt an estimate of the extent and character of the loss thus sustained, nor is it my intention to pronounce his Eulogy, that has already been done in eloquent and most appropriate language by the expression of public and private sympathy, commencing with his funeral solemnities and continued by the unprecedented interest attendant on the subsequent exhibiton of his works. These circumstances not only constitute a high tribute of respect to the memory of Inman, but appeal to our understanding in language that cannot be misunderstood, and should not pass unheeded--Not that this expression of public respect has reference merely to the man as an estimable member of society or of any particular fraternity; nor is it that our professional pride is thereby soothed with the reflection, that the distinguished of our calling shall not in future, as heretofore steal from the world and not a stone tell where they lie, but we regard it as a tribute paid to the Art in which he excelled--a public acknowledgement of the value and evidence of more enlightened appreciation of the character and influence of the Fine Arts in our Country.
