John Wollaston (painter)
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
painter of portrait
Portrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...
s who was active in the British colonies in North America for much of his career. He was one of a handful of painters to introduce the English Rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
style to the American colonies.
Biography
Little is known of Wollaston's early life. He is believed to have been born in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, the son of a painter. Some sources give his father's name as John Wollaston; others, citing Horace Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting in England of 1765, suggest that his father's name was John Woolston, and that he later changed his name to Wollaston. Similarly, little is known about his artistic training; Charles Willson Peale
Charles Willson Peale
Charles Willson Peale was an American painter, soldier and naturalist. He is best remembered for his portrait paintings of leading figures of the American Revolution, as well as establishing one of the first museums....
, in a letter dated 1812 and written to his son Rembrandt
Rembrandt Peale
Rembrandt Peale was an American artist and museum keeper. A prolific portrait painter, he was especially acclaimed for his likenesses of presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson...
, mentions that Wollaston trained in London with a painter of drapery
Drapery
Drapery is a general word referring to cloths or textiles . It may refer to cloth used for decorative purposes – such as around windows – or to the trade of retailing cloth, originally mostly for clothing, formerly conducted by drapers.In art history, drapery refers to any cloth or...
, but nothing else has been recorded. It seems evident, from his painting style, that by the time of his American sojourn he had either acquired further training or had developed his personal style a good deal on his own. Stylistically, Wollaston's work bears some similarity to portraits by Thomas Hudson
Thomas Hudson
Thomas Hudson may refer to:* Thomas Hudson , British actor* Thomas Hudson , English portrait painter of the eighteenth century...
and Allan Ramsey, among others, and it has been suggested that his teacher was Joseph van Aken
Joseph Van Aken
Joseph Van Aken, a Flemish artist, who was born in 1709 at Antwerp, who passed a great part of his life in England. He was employed by eminent landscape painters to paint the costumes of the figures in their pictures, in which he was very skilful, and thereby acquired the name of'Schneider van Aken'...
, who completed the drapery in paintings by these and other artists of the period. That Wollaston considered himself English rather than American may be seen by the label on the back of a portrait of William Smith, Jr. painted in 1751; the label describes the artist as "Johnannes Wollaston Londoniensis".
George Whitefield
George Whitefield , also known as George Whitfield, was an English Anglican priest who helped spread the Great Awakening in Britain, and especially in the British North American colonies. He was one of the founders of Methodism and of the evangelical movement generally...
; the original still exists, in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery in London. An engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
was produced after it by John Faber Junior
John Faber Junior
John Faber Junior was a Dutch portrait engraver active in London.-Life:He was born to the artist John Faber Senior in Amsterdam, and learned mezzotint and drawing from his father after the family's move to London. He then enrolled at the St. Martin's Lane Academy...
. A handful of other paintings dating to before his trip to the colonies also exist, including a portrait of an unidentified officer of the British Navy now in the National Gallery of Art.
Wollaston crossed the Atlantic in 1749, settling for a time in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
; there he introduced the latest and most fashionable of London styles in portraiture to American patrons. In 1752 he journeyed south, spending a short time in Philadelphia before arriving in Annapolis
Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. It had a population of 38,394 at the 2010 census and is situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east of Washington, D.C. Annapolis is...
by the spring of 1753. During the following year or so he completed some sixty portraits of Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
ers. He next moved to Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, producing a comparable amount of portraits of locals between 1755 and 1757. Throughout he continued using the compositions and portrait types he had learned in London; although somewhat outmoded by this time, they remained impressive. By the fall of 1758 Wollaston was back in Philadelphia; he was last recorded there in May 1759. It seems likely that he visited the West Indies before arriving in Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
in September 1765. Charleston was his last stop in America; he painted at least seventeen portraits there before returning to London in May 1767. Here he disappears from the historical record; the only further mention of his name comes in 1775, when he was encountered in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
by chance by an acquaintance from the Leeward Islands
Leeward Islands
The Leeward Islands are a group of islands in the West Indies. They are the northern islands of the Lesser Antilles chain. As a group they start east of Puerto Rico and reach southward to Dominica. They are situated where the northeastern Caribbean Sea meets the western Atlantic Ocean...
.
Style
Wollaston's artistic style changed little in the eighteen years he spent in the American colonies. His portraits feature rich depictions of fabricFabric
A fabric is a textile material, short for "textile fabric".Fabric may also refer to:*Fabric , the spatial and geometric configuration of elements within a rock*Fabric , a nightclub in London, England...
s and elegant poses, and his subjects are smiling and oval-eyed; many of his poses seem to be drawn from engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
s. Some of his later New York portraits feature a landscape
Landscape
Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...
background; most focus on careful depiction of the sitters' apparel, which serves as a conspicuous symbol of their class. His treatment of the subjects' eyes in particular is considered somewhat peculiar, and serves to identify even his unsigned portraits. His later works, especially those painted during his Charleston sojourn, depict figures on a smaller scale than the 50x40 format preferred by his Maryland and Virginia patrons. Wollaston has been described as "competent but not very inventive" by some modern critics.
Influence
Wollaston travelled more widely in the American colonies than any other painter, and served to satisfy a growing demand for formal portraiture for merchantMerchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
s and landowners. That his work was widely respected in his day can be seen from laudatory poetry published in the Maryland Gazette in 1753 and in a 1758 edition of The American Magazine and Monthly Chronicle for the British Colonies. The former was penned by a "Dr. T. T." and reads in part:
- BEHOLD the wond’rous Power of Art!
- That mocks devouring Time and Death,
- Can Nature’s ev’ry Charm impart;
- And make the lifeless Canvas breathe.
Wollaston's influence on younger artsts was felt primarily in Philadelphia; there, painters such as Robert Feke
Robert Feke
Robert Feke was an American portrait painter born on Long Island, New York. Little is known for certain about his life before 1741, which is the year he painted his first portrait, Family of Isaac Royall. Sixteen portraits in total are known to be by Feke, and an additional 50 are disputed to be...
, John Hesselius
John Hesselius
John Hesselius was a portraitist who worked mostly in Virginia and Maryland. He was the son of the Swedish-born portraitist Gustavus Hesselius.-Background:...
, and Benjamin West
Benjamin West
Benjamin West, RA was an Anglo-American painter of historical scenes around and after the time of the American War of Independence...
imitated his technique and compositions in their own output. It also seems likely that Jeremiah Theus
Jeremiah Theus
Jeremiah Theus was a Swiss-born American painter, primarily of portraits...
became acquainted with Wollaston's work during the latter's time in Charleston, and adapted some of the older artist's techniques in his own later paintings.
Today, Wollaston's portraits can be found in many museum collections; among these are those of the National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
; the Detroit Institute of Arts
Detroit Institute of Arts
The Detroit Institute of Arts is a renowned art museum in the city of Detroit. In 2003, the DIA ranked as the second largest municipally owned museum in the United States, with an art collection valued at more than one billion dollars...
, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...
; and the Brooklyn Museum of Art.