1755-1828 Gilbert Stuart was born in North Kingston, R.I., on Dec. 3, 1755. At the age of 13 or 14 he studied art with the Scottish painter Cosmo Alexander in Newport. With Alexander he made a tour of the South and a journey to Edinburgh, where Alexander died in 1772. For about a year Stuart remained, poverty-stricken, in Scotland, but finally, working as a sailor, he managed to get back to America. There he executed a few portraits in a hard limner fashion. With the Revolutionary War threatening, his family, who had Tory sympathies, fled to Nova Scotia, and Stuart sailed for London, where he remained from 1775 to 1787. For the first 4 or 5 years, Stuart served as the first assistant of American expatriate painter Benjamin West, who had rescued him from poverty. From the first, Stuart showed an interest only in portraiture and had no desire to go into the branch of history painting West practiced. After his apprenticeship, Stuart became London's leading portrait painter, next to Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, whose style he emulated, as in a rare full-length portrait of William Grant of Congalton as The Skater (ca. 1782). For a while Stuart lived in splendor, but being a bad businessman and a profligate spender, he was in constant debt. He lived in Ireland from 1787 to 1792 and then returned to America to make a fortune,  Related Paintings of Gilbert Stuart :. | Thomas Jefferson | The Skater | Sarah Siddons | President | WashingtonAtDorchesterHeightsByStuart |
Related Artists:
Simone Dei Crocifissi
Italian Painter , 1330-1399
Edward Hicks
1780-1849 Edward Hicks (April 14, 1780 ?C August 23, 1849) was an American Folk painter, a distinguished minister of the Society of Friends, and he also became a Quaker icon because of his paintings. Edward Hicks was born in his grandfather's mansion at Langhorne, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He was born into a life of luxury, and his parents were both Anglican. After his mother passed away when he was eighteen months old, Matron Elizabeth Twining - a close friend of his mother's- raised him as one of her own. She also taught him the Quaker beliefs. This had a great effect on the rest of his life. At the age of thirteen he was an apprentice for coach makers William and Henry Tomlison. He stayed with them for seven years. His living situation inspired him to desire a much better way of life for himself. He wanted a simple, well respected life and to be able to earn his own wages. He wanted to be able to make choices for himself, in all that he did. It was then that he knew that something amusing and entertaining such as a career in art could satisfy his goals. He spent three years contemplating what his life meant to him, and grew a strong passion for art. His religious commitments affected his thoughts on living and art in many ways. In 1803, he married a Quaker woman named Sarah Worstall.
Laurits Andersen Ring
Danish, 1854-1933 Laurits Andersen Ring (1854-1933) was one of the foremost painters of Danish symbolism. He was born as Laurits Andersen in the village Ring in southern Zealand. In 1881 he the took the name of his birth place, and was since known as L.A. Ring. For a while, he lived at Baldersbronde near Hedehusene in the old school building, which was later to be the home of another painter, Ludvig Find. Ring has produced several paintings from these towns. As a painter, he never distanced himself from his humble origin, but rather made it his dominant theme. Most of his paintings depict the village life and landscapes of southern Zealand from Præsto to Nestved. There are several examples of his work at practically every Danish art museum including the Hirschsprung Collection in Copenhagen. He was married on July 25, 1896 to fellow painter Sigrid Kahler, who was the daughter of ceramic artist Herman Kahler.