John Singleton Copley has been described not only as one of the greatest of American painters of the colonial period but also the most artistically accomplished and financially successful portraitist in America. Copley was born in Boston on 26 July 1738 to Irish immigrants Richard and Mary Copley. His father died when Copley was just ten years old but his mother soon remarried London-trained engraver and schoolmaster, Peter Pelham. Three years later, Pelham died, but the three years in which Copley was in the home of his stepfather proved to be formative for his development as an artist. Pelham probably instructed the young Copley in drawing, printmaking, and portraiture, as well as introducing him to the English portrait prints that were to influence him throughout his career. Other artists who influenced Copley during his early career included the English emigrant artists John Smibert (1688-1751), Joseph Badger (about 1708-1765), Robert Feke (about 1708-1751), and John Greenwood (1729-1792). Much of Copley's earlier work reflects the style of these artists. In 1755, the arrival of English painter Joseph Blackburn (active 1752-1751) was to have a great influence upon Copley's artistic development, in terms of his adopting the Rococo style and themes. By the age of twenty, Copley began to develop a style of his own rather than producing portraits in the style of these other artists.
But Copley had ambitions to be an artist of international standing and in 1765 he sent his portrait of Henry Pelham, his 16-year-old half-brother (Boy with a Squirrel (Henry Pelham), 1765) to London for the spring exhibition of the Society of the Artists of Great Britain. This piece met with praise from many, including artists such as Sir Joshua Reynolds and Benjamin West. In 16 November 1769, Copley married Susanna Farnham Clarke, thereby linking him to one of the most prominent and prosperous merchant families in Boston. They were to have six children, three of whom died at young ages. His son John Singleton Jnr became the British lawyer and statesman, Lord Lyndhurst (First Baron Lyndhurst). |
