Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists of the second half of the 18th century. He painted quickly, and the works of his maturity are characterised by a light palette and easy strokes. Despite being a prolific portrait painter, Gainsborough gained greater satisfaction from his landscapes. He is credited as the originator of the 18th-century British landscape school. Gainsborough was a founding member of the Royal Academy.
John Singleton Copley was an Anglo-American painter, active in both colonial America and England. He was believed to be born in Boston, Province of Massachusetts Bay, to Richard and Mary Singleton Copley, both Anglo-Irish. After becoming well-established as a portrait painter of the wealthy in colonial New England, he moved to London in 1774, never returning to America. In London, he met considerable success as a portraitist for the next two decades, and also painted a number of large history paintings, which were innovative in their readiness to depict modern subjects and modern dress. His later years were less successful, and he died heavily in debt. He was father of John Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst and half-brother of Henry Pelham, the American painter, engraver, and cartographer.
Gilbert Stuart was an American painter born in the Rhode Island Colony who is widely considered one of America's foremost portraitists. His best-known work is an unfinished portrait of George Washington, begun in 1796, which is usually referred to as the Athenaeum Portrait. Stuart retained the original and used it to paint scores of copies that were commissioned by patrons in America and abroad. The image of George Washington featured in the painting has appeared on the United States one-dollar bill for more than a century and on various postage stamps of the 19th century and early 20th century.
Charles Willson Peale was an American painter, soldier, scientist, inventor, politician, and naturalist.
Mather Brown was an American painter who was born in Boston, Massachusetts and was active in England.
The Yale Center for British Art at Yale University in central New Haven, Connecticut, houses the largest and most comprehensive collection of British art outside the United Kingdom. The collection of paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, rare books, and manuscripts reflects the development of British art and culture from the Elizabethan period onward.
Robert Feke was an American portrait painter born in Oyster Bay, New York. According to art historian Richard Saunders, "Feke’s impact on the development of Colonial painting was substantial, and his pictures set a new standard by which the work of the next generation of aspiring Colonial artists was judged." In total, about 60 paintings by Feke survive, twelve of which are signed and dated.
Margaret Kemble Gage (1734–1824) was the wife of General Thomas Gage, who led the British Army in Massachusetts in the American Revolutionary War. It is alleged that she played an important role in the outcome of the American Revolution. She was suspected of having divided loyalties and informing the American Revolutionaries of British troop movements.
The New Britain Museum of American Art is an art museum in New Britain, Connecticut. Founded in 1903, it is the first museum in the country dedicated to American art.
Sir Brook Watson, 1st Baronet was an English merchant and politician who served as the Lord Mayor of London from 1796 to 1797. He is best known as the subject of John Singleton Copley's painting Watson and the Shark, which depicts a shark attack on Watson as a young man in Havana that resulted in the loss of his right leg below the knee.
Ralph Inman (1713–1788) was a merchant in 18th-century Boston, Massachusetts, with a residence in Cambridge. During the American Revolution he supported the British.
Events from the year 1768 in art.
The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar is the title of a 1791 oil-on-canvas painting by Boston-born American artist John Singleton Copley. It depicts the defeat of the floating batteries at Gibraltar during the Great Siege of Gibraltar. The Governor of Gibraltar, General George Augustus Eliott, is on horseback pointing to the rescue of the defeated Spanish sailors by the British.
John Greenwood Sr. was an American painter, engraver and auctioneer.
Joseph Badger was a portrait artist in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 18th century. He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, to tailor Stephen Badger and Mercy Kettell. He "began his career as a house-painter and glazier, and ... throughout his life continued this work, besides painting signs, hatchments and other heraldic devices, in order to eke out a livelihood when orders for portraits slackened." In 1731 he married Katharine Felch; they moved to Boston around 1733. He was a member of the Brattle Street Church. He died in Boston on May 11, 1765, when "on Saturday last one Mr. Badger, of this Town, Painter, was taken with an Apoplectic Fit as he was walking in his Garden, and expired in a few Minutes after." Works by Badger are in the collections of the Worcester Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and Historic New England's Phillips House, Salem, Mass. While respected in his own time, subsequent scholars and connoisseurs largely overlooked Badger's significance until Lawrence Park wrote a book about him in 1918.
William Johnston was a colonial American painter. He was the first painter to spend any significant amount of time in Connecticut, and was active in Portsmouth, New Hampshire as well.
Mrs. Theodore Atkinson Jr. is an oil-on-canvas portrait painting completed in 1765 by the American artist John Singleton Copley. It is now housed in the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
Carrie Rebora Barratt is an American art historian specializing in museum administration and collaborative nonprofit leadership. She has worked in this domain in New York City since the 1980s. Barratt was Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture (1989–2009), and Manager of the Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art (1989–2009) and Deputy Director for Collections (2009-2018) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She served as the Chief Executive Officer and William C. Steere Sr. President of The New York Botanical Garden 2018-2020 during a transitional period. Prior to that, she spent over thirty years at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a curator and administrator.
A Boy with a Flying Squirrel (Henry Pelham), or Henry Pelham (Boy with a Squirrel), is a 1765 painting by the American-born painter John Singleton Copley. It depicts Copley's teenaged half-brother Henry Pelham with a pet flying squirrel, a creature commonly found in colonial American portraits as a symbol of the sitter's refinement. Painted while Copley was a Boston-based portraitist aspiring to be recognized by his European contemporaries, the work was brought to London for a 1766 exhibition. There, it was met with overall praise from artists like Joshua Reynolds, who nonetheless criticized Copley's minuteness. Later historians and critics assessed the painting as a pivotal work in both Copley's career and the history of American art. The work was featured in exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the National Gallery of Art. As of 2023, it is held by the former.
Portrait of Thomas Gage is a 1768 portrait painting by the American artist John Singleton Copley depicting the British general Thomas Gage.
