Sunshine and Flowers by Irving R. Wiles was exhibited at the 1893 World’s Fair. [Image from Art of the World Illustrated in the paintings, statuary, and architecture of the World’s Columbian Exposition Volume II, edited by Ripley Hitchcock (Appleton, 1893).]

Mother and child are featured Sunshine and Flowers, a painting by American artist Irving Ramsey Wiles exhibited at the 1893 World’s Fair. The oil painting hung on the north wall of Gallery 6 (United States section) in the Palace of Fine Arts. This description of the painter and composition comes from Art of the World Illustrated in the paintings, statuary, and architecture of the World’s Columbian Exposition Volume II, edited by Ripley Hitchcock (Appleton, 1893).

Mr. Wiles is an artist by inheritance. He was born in Utica, New York, in 1862, and began his professional studies in the studio of his father, Mr. L. M. Wiles, continuing them at the Art Students League, and in Paris under Lefebvre and Carolus Duran. His return to New York was the beginning of a successful career, which has included membership in nearly all the New York societies of artists, and the winning of various prizes. Mr. Wiles is a painter of the figure, and his success with feminine types is well indicated in the charming picture before us, an unconventional outdoor expression of gentle motherhood and infantine grace.

Irving R. Wiles. [Image from Art of the World Illustrated in the paintings, statuary, and architecture of the World’s Columbian Exposition Volume II, edited by Ripley Hitchcock (Appleton, 1893).]