William Kingston Vickery

William Kingston Vickery (16 March 1851 – 25 March 1925) was an Irish-American picture dealer who founded the San Francisco interior design firm and art gallery of Vickery, Atkins & Torrey. His art exhibitions are credited with bringing French Impressionism to the attention of Californians.

William was born 16 March 1851, Ballydehob, County Cork, Ireland to Paul and Mary Anne Levis Vickery. Paul Vickery died young and Mary Anne supported the family by successfully running the family store in Skibbereen. Paul and Mary Anne had ten children:

William went to school in Skibbereen and subsequently to the Blue Coat School (known more formally as The King's Hospital) in Dublin. When he finished school he went to work for a Dublin bank. The bank sent him to the West Indies to check on various accounts. While there, he made a trip to northern South America. He went by dugout canoe up the Essequibo River. Later, a San Francisco newspaper referred to him as "the adventuresome Mr. Vickery".

When he came down with tuberculosis, the family sent him to California to get well (or die). He travelled by way of New York where his brother-in-law Fred Keppel had a well-known art store. Fred Keppel dealt primarily in etchings as he was color blind. He gave William a consignment of etchings to sell, if he could, in San Francisco. William did not take the recently completed transcontinental railroad, but went by ship to Nicaragua, portaged across to the Pacific, and continued by ship to San Francisco. In 1880, he was living in San Rafael, Marin County, where he was able to follow doctor's orders to lead an outdoor life of activities such as horseback riding. It worked. He got well.

After establishing himself in California and regaining his health, William wrote to his sweetheart, Sarah Keppel (1852–1917), in Ireland, "come marry me". She did. They had 3 children:

William began his art business by opening a little kiosk against the wall of the Palace Hotel on Market Street in San Francisco. As the business became established and grew, his nephew Henry Atkins joined in 1888 and Frederic Cheever Torrey (1864–1935) in 1891 or so. In 1900 the company became Vickery, Atkins & Torrey.

In March 1891, and again in 1893 and 1895, William Vickery supervised a series of loan exhibitions that introduced Impressionism to California. These exhibitions included paintings by Monet, Eugene Boudin, Camille Pissarro, Pierre Renoir, and Edgar Degas.

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