Edwin Murray MacKay

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Edwin Murray MacKay (September 29, 1869 – February 28, 1926) was an American portrait painter from Michigan. He was born in Sebewaing, Michigan, and studied at the Detroit Museum of Art School before learning in New York and Paris with Kenyon Cox and Jean-Paul Laurens. He lived in Paris around 1900 and was best known for his portraits. In 1921, he wrote in Michigan History Magazine urging the state to fund a new war memorial and a historical library in Lansing. He died of cancer in Detroit and is buried at Evergreen Cemetery there. After his death, his wife Frances Woods MacKay donated his painting A Japanese Print to the Detroit Institute of Arts. MacKay painted portraits of several Michigan Supreme Court justices—Grant Fellows, Aaron V. McAlvay, Russell C. Ostrander, and Joseph H. Steere—some of which hang in the Michigan Hall of Justice in Lansing. He also painted the official portrait of Governor Albert Sleeper around 1920; it is in the Michigan State Capitol and is seen as a turning point toward a more artistic, expressive style in governor portraits.