Edward Harrison May was born in Croydon, England, but moved to New York City as a child with his father, a Dutch Reformed minister. He started out studying civil engineering, but soon decided to switch to art and took lessons from the painter Daniel Huntington. Many nineteenth-century artists spent time in Europe to perfect their skills, and in 1851, May moved permanently to Paris, where he created portraits of wealthy Europeans and Americans and won a gold medal at the 1855 Paris Exposition
