Copley John Singleton

Born on 03 July 1738: John Singleton Copley, Massachusetts Realist painter, specialized in portraits, who died on 09 September 1815.
— He was the greatest artist in the British colonies in America, active as a portrait painter in Boston from 1753 to 1774. After a year of study in Italy and following the outbreak of the US War of Independence, in 1775 he settled in London, where he spent the rest of his life, continuing to paint portraits and making his reputation as a history painter.


John Singleton Copley is considered to be the foremost artist of colonial English America. He is also one of its most prolific. Copley was born in Boston and was trained by his stepfather, a mezzotint engraver. Copley's early work shows the influence of the Boston painter John Smibert and of English rococo portraitists. From the latter he learned the device of the portrait d'apparat, in which artifacts used by the subject are included in the portrait, as in Paul Revere, an intense likeness of the patriot-silversmith holding one of his silver teapots. By 1760 Copley's distinctive style had crystallized, characterized by meticulous technique, clear verisimilitude, and a vivid, balanced palette. His sitters included famous politicians (John Hancock, 1765) and wealthy New Englanders (Mrs. Sylvanus Bourne, 1766). 

      Copley sent his painting The Boy with a Squirrel (1765) to London, where it was exhibited. Impressed by the painting, the English portraitist Sir Joshua Reynolds and the expatriate American painter Benjamin West urged Copley to immigrate to Europe. In 1774 Copley followed their advice, touring Italy and then settling in London in 1775. He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in the following year and a full member in 1779, the same year he exhibited his protoromantic Watson and the Shark (1778), a virtuoso rendering of an actual incident in Havana Harbor. Under West's influence, Copley turned to history painting, with such splendid large canvases as The Death of the Earl of Chatham (1781), a dramatically composed version of a timely event. Copley died in London.
— Copley's students included Henry Sargent.