John Mulvany was born around 1839 to tenant farmers in Moynalty, County Meath, Ireland. Due to the famine, he emigrated to the United States in 1851 and worked odd jobs in New York and New York City, including as an Erie Canal towpath driver and a National Academy of Design (NAD) messenger. He became a student at the NAD in 1859, and in 1861 moved to Chicago to work as a colorist for Irish newspapers. In Chicago, he participated in Irish nationalist organizations: the Fenian Brotherhood and Clan na Gael. Connections in these groups helped fund his artistic education. In 1869, the Irish-American Club and Samuel B. Coale financed a trip to Europe, where he studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste in Munich under Karl von Piloty, earning a medal of honor for excellence in 1871, the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Antwerp, and in Paris and Amsterdam.

Mulvany returned to the US in 1871 and, after the destruction of his studio in the Great Chicago Fire, traveled through the west and midwestern states. Mulvaney had his first major success with his painting The preliminary trial of a horse thief in 1876. In 1879, he began his most famous work, a large-scale depiction glorifying General Custer and the US 7th Cavalry at their defeat at Little Bighorn. Mulvany visited the battlefield to sketch the terrain, interviewed battle veterans on the Lakota reservation, obtained portraits and descriptions from military associates of Custer and his officers, and researched Native American and US Cavalry dress, weaponry, and tactics. The resulting painting, Custer's last rally, was completed in 1881, measures 20 x 11 feet, and toured the US and Europe.

Following this success, Mulvany returned to Ireland to paint The battle of Aughrim commemorating Irish soldiers in the 1691 battle of the Williamite war. The painting was exhibited in Dublin in 1885. When he returned to the United States, his funding was no longer available due to internal conflict in Clan na Gael. He supported himself meagerly by painting American Civil War scenes and commissioned portraits. His most notable Civil War piece was Sheridan's ride from Winchester, depicting General Sheridan during the 1864 Shenandoah Valley campaign, and his portraits included Brigham Young, Robert Emmet, and Tatanka Iyotanka ("Sitting Bull"). Mulvany set up studios in cities across the United States, but often moved suddenly and left behind debts.

Mulvany married Ellen Welch in 1890. The couple divorced two years later. He also had a romantic involvement with Lucy Deere, whom he met around 1880. In 1897, Mulvany moved to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York, where he lived with his half-sister, Alice Muldoon. His work opportunities continued to decline, and he suffered from alcoholism, vertigo, and throat cancer. Mulvany died by drowning in the East River in early May, 1906, likely by suicide.

Sources:

Gannon, Joe, "Meath artist John Mulvany: Painting the 'Last Stand'," The Wild Geese, March 20, 2023.

"John Mulvany," Wikipedia, February 3, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mulvany.

Kilgannon, Corey, "Over a century later, an Irish painter's Brooklyn renaissance," New York Times, March 15, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/nyregion/john-mulvany-greenpoint-brooklyn.html

O'Clery, Conor, "Long-lost painting found on eBay," The World, August 2, 2016. https://theworld.org/stories/2016/08/02/long-lost-painting-found-ebay.

"Painter of 'Last Rally' drowned in East River," New York Times, May 23, 1906.

Weber, Anne, "John Mulvany's paintings and politics," Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, March 21, 2014. https://abrahamlincolnatgettysburg.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/john-mulvanys-paintings-and-politics-by-anne-weber/

Weber, Anne, "Me and John Mulvany," Anne Weber: artist & author. https://anneweber.me/me-and-john-mulvany. Accessed February 4, 2026.

White, Lawrence William, "Mulvany, John," Dictionary of Irish Biography, April 2021. https://doi.org/10.3318/dib.006052.v1