John Greenwood was an early American portrait painter and engraver.

Greenwood was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1727. He apprenticed with Thomas Johnston, a sign painter and engraver from 1742 to 1745 where he copied various English works. Besides portraits, Greenwood painted many satirical works. He left Boston in 1752 and went first to the Dutch colony of Surinam and then to Paris and England.

One of Greenwood's best known works is Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam (1755), a drunken scene featuring various prominent Rhode Island

Rhode Island

The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...

 merchants, including Declaration of Independence

United States Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. John Adams put forth a...

  signatory Stephen Hopkins

Stephen Hopkins (politician)

Stephen Hopkins was an American political leader from Rhode Island who signed the Declaration of Independence. He served as the Chief Justice and Governor of the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and was a Delegate to the Colonial Congress in Albany in 1754 and to the...

, Governor Joseph Wanton

Joseph Wanton

Joseph Wanton was a merchant and governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations from 1769 to 1775. Not wanting to go to war with Britain, he has been branded as a Loyalist, but he remained neutral during the war, and he and his property were not disturbed.Born in Newport of a...

, Admiral Esek Hopkins

Esek Hopkins

Commodore Esek Hopkins was the first and only Commander in Chief of the Continental Navy during the American Revolutionary War. He was also an accomplished merchant captain and privateer.-Early life and career:...

, and Governor Nicholas Cooke

Nicholas Cooke

Nicholas Cooke was a governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations during the American Revolutionary War, and after Rhode Island became a state, he continued in this position to become the first Governor of the State of Rhode Island. Born in the maritime town of Providence, he...

.

Greenwood died in London, England in 1792.

External links

• "A History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States" By William Dunlap, Frank William Bayley, Charles Eliot Goodspeed (Boston: 1918 C.E. Goodspeed)