American Colonial Era Painter, 1738-1815 American portrait painter, b. Boston. Copley is considered the greatest of the American old masters. He studied with his stepfather, Peter Pelham, and undoubtedly frequented the studios of Smibert and Feke. At 20 he was already a successful portrait painter with a mature style remarkable for its brilliance, clarity, and forthright characterization. In 1766 his Boy with the Squirrel was exhibited in London and won the admiration of Benjamin West, who urged him to come to England. However, he remained in America for eight years longer and worked in New York City and Philadelphia as well as in Boston. In 1774 Copley visited Italy and then settled in London, where he spent the remainder of his life, enjoying many honors and the patronage of a distinguished clientele. In England his style gained in subtlety and polish but lost most of the vigor and individuality of his early work. He continued to paint portraits but enlarged his repertoire to include the enormous historical paintings that constituted the chief basis of his fame abroad. His large historical painting The Death of Lord Chatham (Tate Gall., London) gained him admittance to the Royal Academy. His rendering of a contemporary disaster, Brook Watson and the Shark (Mus. of Fine Arts, Boston), stands as a unique forerunner of romantic horror painting. Today Copley's reputation rests largely upon his early American portraits, which are treasured not only for their splendid pictorial qualities but also as the most powerful graphic record of their time and place. Portraits such as those of Nicholas Boylston and Mrs. Thomas Boylston (Harvard), Daniel Hubbard (Art Inst., Chicago), Governor Mifflin and Mrs. Mifflin (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia), and Paul Revere (Mus. of Fine Arts, Boston) are priceless documents in which the life of a whole society seems mirrored.   Related Paintings of COPLEY, John Singleton :. | Paul Revere | Paul Revere | The Death of Major Peirson (mk08) | Portrait of Dorothy Quincy | Portrait of Rebecca Boylston (mk08) |
Related Artists:
Abraham Brueghel
(1631-1690) was a Flemish painter from the famous family of artists. He was the son of Jan Brueghel the Younger, the grandson of Jan Brueghel the Elder and the great-grandson of Pieter Brueghel the Elder.
Inman Henry
American portrait, genre, and landscape painter, 1801-1846 The son of an English land agent who had emigrated to America in 1792, he studied under an itinerant drawing-master before moving to New York with his family in 1812. Two years later he obtained an apprenticeship with the city's leading portrait painter, John Wesley Jarvis, drawn to the artist not only for his skill but also for his collection of pictures, which at that time included Adolf Ulric Wertmuller's Danae and the Shower of Gold (1787; Stockholm, Nmus.). Inman worked closely with Jarvis, eventually accompanying him on his travels and serving more as a collaborator than an apprentice. Within this partnership Inman established a speciality in miniature painting. In 1823 he set up his own practice in New York and ceded miniature painting to his student and eventual partner Thomas Seir Cummings (1804-94).
CHANGENET, Jean
b.1486-d.1493