William James Hubard was British-born artist who worked in England and the United States in the 19th-century. He specialized in silhouette

Silhouette

A silhouette is the image of a person, an object or scene consisting of the outline and a basically featureless interior, with the silhouetted object usually being black. Although the art form has been popular since the mid-18th century, the term “silhouette” was seldom used until the early decades...

 and painted portraits.

Biography

In 1825-1826 he worked in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, setting up an exhibition known as the "Hubard Gallery" at Julien Hall

Julien Hall (Boston)

Julien Hall was a building in Boston, Massachusetts, on the corner of Congress Street and Milk Street. It flourished 1825-1843, housing a variety of public events such as lectures by Red Jacket, William Lloyd Garrison; temperance meetings; political meetings; auctions; exhibitions of live animals,...

 (corner Congress and Milk

Milk Street

Milk Street is a street in the financial district of Boston, Massachusetts.Milk Street was one of Boston's earliest highways. The name "Milk Street" was given to the street in 1708 due to the milk market at the location...

Streets). At the time Hubard would have been about 18 or 19 years old. A local newspaper reported "there is a great variety of pictures -- likenesses, groups of animals, landscape scenery, caricatures, &c. -- all cut with a simple pair of scissors, without the aid of any machinery whatever, and which a spectator might, at a hasty glance, take for painting." He received raves in the press: "He exercises his scissors with so much dexterity and skill, that an accurate profile, even of the most 'unmeaning face,' can be procured in twenty-five seconds, without the use of steam." Local resident John George Metcalf visited the gallery in 1825, and wrote in his diary:

"Hubard Gallery. This is a collection of cuttings of black paper of all the shapes and figures that can possibly be imagined. The figures after being cut out, are arranged and pasted on white paper which are skilfully and tastefully placed about the Hall. This Astonishing genius is a native of Shropshire in England and is now about fifteen years of age. Here, and all done with only a pair of common scissors, you can see the stately structures of Westminster Abbey, the Catholic Church at Glasgow and others all with their due proportion of light and shade. Here Napoleon has burst from the cearments of the grave and is upon his warhorse, as when on the bloody fields of Austerlitz and Marengo. Franklin too has come back, and stands for the patriot and Philosopher as when at the court of London he said "his Master shall pay for it." Kings and princes have left their gilded mausoleums, and at the will of Master Hubard are set up to be gazed at by clown and cobler. Besides these graver scenes we have the lighter ones of Life. Here Doctor Syntax and his whole Tour can be found and all his scenes of fun and merriment stand forth to be looked and laughed at. Fiddlers, Beggars, Bellmen, Irishmen and others ad infinitum, all as natural as life, all the creation of a pair of common scissors, attract the attention and excite the admiration of many a gazer. Horses and Dogs, pigs and pussies, and all that "sort o' thing," can here be found from the size of a thumb-nail to that of a platter. In fine here any one, if he is not made by one of Nature's journeymen, can find fun and frolic enough to last a week."

Works by Hubard reside in the collections of Historic New England; and the Smithsonian.

Further reading

• A catalogue of the subjects contained in the Hubard gallery: to which is prefixed a brief memoir of Master Hubard. Philadelphia: Atkinson and Alexander, 1825. Google books
• Master Hubard. Boston news-letter and city record, April 8, 1826. Google books
• Louise F. Catterall. Tabb-Hubard Letters. Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 56, No. 1 (Jan., 1948), pp. 57-65
• William James Hubard, 1807-1862 : a concurrent survey and exhibition, January, 1948. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 1848
• Albert Ten Eyck Gardner. Southern Monuments: Charles Carroll and William James Hubard. Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Summer, 1958), pp. 19-23.
• Penley Knipe. Shades and Shadow-Pictures: The Materials and Techniques of American Portrait Silhouettes. 1999. http://cool.conservation-us.org/coolaic/sg/bpg/annual/v18/bp18-07.html

External links

• WorldCat
• http://www.apva.org/marshall/collection/ldr_hubard.php
• http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,779639,00.html
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Margaret Oliver Colt and Mary Devereux Colt in the Gardens at "Green Mount," Baltimore, 1830. By Hubard.
• http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?EM12221
• http://collections.si.edu/search/results.jsp?q=record_ID:npg_NPG.78.266
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. Portrait of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, ca.1830
• http://richmondthenandnow.com/Newspaper-Articles/William-James-Hubard-Silhouette.html