Thomas S. Officer: Miniature and Portrait Painter

Born in Carlisle in 1810, this gifted artist trained in Philadelphia, traveled extensively, won awards for his paintings, and drank himself to an early death in San Francisco in 1859.

In 1872, James Miller McKim wrote a series of reminiscences for the Carlisle Herald newspaper about the places and people of Carlisle in an earlier day. He wrote that “David Smith, a boot and shoemaker, had two sons… one of whom early developed a taste for art and finally devoted himself to miniature painting as a profession. He was a contemporary, and for a while, a rival of Mr. Thomas Officer, though I believe he never reached the celebrity attained by that gifted young artist. Mr. Officer, by the way, was one of the last miniature painters of any eminence produced by this country, the daguerreotype and photographer having come in to sweep away the entire profession.”^[1]

Thomas Story Officer was born in Carlisle on August 15, 1810 to cabinetmaker John Officer and his second wife Margaret. He trained in Philadelphia with the well known portrait painter Thomas Sully and began his career there in the 1830s.^[2] Officer left Philadelphia occasionally to paint portraits in Mobile, Alabama in 1837, in Richmond, Virginia in 1845 and in New York City from 1846-1849 where he became a member of the National Academy of Design.^[3]

In 1842, Officer intended to travel to Mexico and needed a passport. He asked Attorney Charles B. Penrose, formerly of Carlisle, to write a letter of recommendation for him. In his letter to Fletcher Webster, Esq., Penrose wrote, “This will be handed to you by Thomas S. Officer, Esq., a friend of mine, and a native artist of Pennsylvania, who is a gentleman of great talents and respectability. Intending to visit Mexico, he wishes to procure passports at the State Department…” ^[4] Officer was issued a passport in July 1842. He was described as 30 years old, 5’ 11” with a “full and round forehead, bluish gray eyes, an ordinary nose, medium mouth, ordinary chin, sallow complexion with an oval face and brown hair.”^[5]

Officer went to Mexico and later to Australia. In 1854, he opened a studio in Sandridge, Australia, and while there he “entered several oil portraits in the 1854 Melbourne Exhibition preparatory to sending them to the 1855 Paris Exhibition.”^[6] Officer left Australia, and in 1855 he settled in San Francisco where he would spend the last years of his life.

He set up a portrait painting department in James Johnson’s photographic gallery in San Francisco. In 1857, Officer received a bronze medal for his oil portraits exhibited at The First Industrial Exhibition of the Mechanics’ Institute of San Francisco, as well as awards at several other exhibits in 1858.^[7] Unfortunately, his life was in a downward spiral.

A short piece in the San Francisco newspaper, Alta, on October 30, 1859, read, “Mr. Thomas S. Officer, the talented portrait painter, lies near to death’s door and is in pecuniary distress. Out of the many to whose pleasure he has contributed by his gay, social manners, as well as by his pleasing artistic productions, may there not be found someone who will extend a helping hand?” ^[8] Officer died on December 8, 1859. Almost an entire column in the January 18, 1860 edition of the Carlisle Herald, was devoted to a very long and informative obituary of Officer taken from the Alta, Calilfornia newspaper. Officer was buried in the now defunct Lone Mountain Cemetery in San Francisco.^[9] 

In 2014, the Cumberland County Historical Society received a bequest of a portrait painted by Thomas Officer from the estate of historian John J. Snyder, Jr. It joined a miniature portrait already a part of the Society’s museum collection in Carlisle, not far from where Officer was born.

Notes: The May 28, 1834 edition of the Carlisle Weekly Herald reported that Thomas S. Officer had "...within the last few weeks, taken the portraits of several gentlemen of this borough...Mr. O. is principally self-taught, and although young, already evinced a degree of taste, judgment and talent..."

A short biography of Officer can also be found in Early American Portrait Painters in Miniature by Theodore Bolton, published by F. F. Sherman (New York, 1921). The entire book is one line at: https://books.google.com/books?id=ymlrAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false  Bio. of Officer on page 117.

See Officer’s portrait of a lady painted c. 1850 in the collection of the Smithsonian Institute of Art at: http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=1894