Gilbert Stuart

American painter

• Born: December 3, 1755
• Birthplace: North Kingstown, Rhode Island
• Died: July 9, 1828
• Place of death: Boston, Massachusetts

Stuart shaped the American image of George Washington with his painted portraits and also acquainted Americans with men and women of the generation that founded the United States. Stuart’s great artistic achievements helped to launch the cultural life of the new nation.

Early Life

Gilbert Stuart was born in the family quarters over his father’s snuff mill. The elder Stuart, also named Gilbert, had left Scotland in the aftermath of the failed uprising there against the English (1745), a loss that caused much suffering and poverty. By 1751, he had entered into a business partnership for the manufacture of snuff and a marital partnership with Elizabeth Anthony, whose family owned a considerable amount of land. Ten years later, the snuff mill was abandoned and the Stuart family moved to Newport. Their circumstances were adequate but limited, and young Gilbert at the age of five was able to attend a school run by Trinity Church, the fees paid from a fund for the education of poor boys.

He was an apt student, but often his zest for mischievous pranks got him into trouble. He learned to play the flute and harpsichord, and he enjoyed drawing. His rather ordinary life was changed by the arrival, in 1769, of a most extraordinary person, Cosmo Alexander, an itinerant portrait painter from Scotland. Stuart was fascinated by this sophisticated, well-traveled man and delighted to enter his employ as an assistant who would do the many menial chores needed for painting; his pay was in the form of lessons in drawing. When Alexander moved on, Stuart accompanied him. They made their way south, at least as far as Virginia, stopping when clients could be found. Then, in 1770, they sailed to Scotland. It was there, in Edinburgh, that Stuart began to acquire the manners, speech, bearing, and social ease of a gentleman. Yet the high promise of his situation came to an end rather quickly, for Alexander died only two years later.

For the next few years, Stuart’s life was a dreadful one. He was unable to support himself in Edinburgh. Somehow, probably by working his way, he got back home to Newport. He had become determined by this time to be a portrait painter, and he tried valiantly in Newport to practice the craft, but with discouraging results. He loved music, too, and became somewhat proficient on a number of instruments, including the organ, but that did not provide a living. These were the years, the middle 1770’s, of the final crises in Anglo-American relations that culminated in the American Revolution; everything was disturbed and uncertain. It was the wrong place and the wrong time to launch a career as an artist. Stuart’s closest boyhood friend, Benjamin Waterhouse, had gone to London to study medicine. In July, 1775, Stuart, hoping to join him, sought his own profession there.

It was quite a struggle, living the life of a starving artist in cheap lodgings. He found some clients, but not many. He made some money for a time as a church organist. When he did get financial help, he was unable to manage his affairs, giving way to extravagant impulses and neglecting his work. Finally, he wrote for help to Benjamin West, the rising American painter who had already found fame and fortune in London and who was known as a generous benefactor to fellow Americans who aspired to artistic achievement. After considerable hesitation, West employed him as a copyist and shortly thereafter accepted him as a pupil. At the age of twenty-one, in the spring of 1777, Stuart had managed to find the opportunity he needed to launch a great career.

Life’s Work

Work in West’s studio, it seems, provided Gilbert Stuart with exactly the conditions he needed to realize the full potential of his great talent. First, there was the discipline of a fixed, imposed routine—steady work habits, with little chance of temperamental abandonment of half-finished work. Then there was the systematic instruction by a foremost artist who usually took a keen interest in his many protégés. The association with other aspirants was stimulating and instructive; among them, at the time, were other Americans, such as the older, experienced John Singleton Copley and the less experienced John Trumbull, who arrived in 1780. There were also the prospects for important future clients who would be pleased to have a portrait by an associate of West, painter for the royal household and even a friend of George III. Stuart took fine advantage of all this, showing rapid improvement in his painting. A self-portrait he painted in 1778 documents his progress; when West saw it, his earlier doubts about Stuart were overcome, and he encouraged his charge to submit future work for exhibition at the Royal Academy. By this time, Stuart was living in the vast West household.

By 1781, Stuart’s name was becoming known in artistic circles, and some of the portraits he exhibited received favorable comment. One portrait of West, in particular, was praised that year when it appeared in an exhibition that also included work by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. A few new commissions followed, and one of them made him famous. A friend, William Grant, arrived for a sitting on a particularly cold day, which prompted the remark that it was a good day for ice skating, which both enjoyed. They skated first and then returned to the studio, where Stuart eventually got the idea of portraying his subject on skates. The Skater was the sensation of the Royal Academy exhibition of 1782 and remains one of his most celebrated works. He was now sought by many to paint their portraits. He moved to his own quarters and began a lavish style of life, soon running beyond his actual means to sustain it. In another five years, this improvidence would end his glorious London career.

Stuart was especially well suited for expansive living. Always a voluble talker and possessed of an irrepressible sense of humor, he was an intensely social being. Concerned with personal appearance and current fashion, he acquired fine new clothes of bright colors, elegant buttons, and the finest lace ruffles and trim. Standing five feet, ten inches, he was lean, quick of movement and tongue, every bit the fine, modish London gentleman. His abundant, dark brown hair was now powdered white for public appearances. The most striking feature of his face was a long nose, but he was handsome in a somewhat rugged way.

During these years—the middle 1780’s—Stuart’s clients included many well-known people, such as Sir William Petty, the earl of Shelburne; Admiral Lord Hood; Richard Brinsley Sheridan; and painter Reynolds. His fees rose accordingly, as did his prestige. Portrait painting was highly favored and highly developed in the England of Gainsborough, Reynolds, George Romney, and other such luminaries; for Stuart to have become regarded as established in their ranks was indeed an astonishing accomplishment for a thirty-year-old American who had emerged from severe adversity only six or seven years before.

There was an impractical side to Stuart that determined the course of his erratic career. In an age when men advanced, in part, by making an advantageous marriage, Stuart fell in love with the daughter of a physician in Reading, Berkshire, well outside the fashionable, affluent circles of London. Despite the family’s strong objections, he married Charlotte Coates in May, 1786. Stuart’s high style of entertainment continued: A French chef, fine wines, live musicians, and elegant tableware were featured. Despite repeated efforts by some of his affluent friends to help him regain control of his finances, rumors began to circulate that Stuart could not pay some of his basic household bills. Creditors pressed in, and at last Stuart realized that debtors’ prison might be awaiting him. One day in October, 1787, Stuart arrived in Dublin, Ireland, presumably at the invitation of the duke of Rutland for the painting of his portrait. Stuart never returned to London’s fashionable social scene.

Stuart’s artistic fame had reached Dublin, but news of his financial irresponsibility apparently had not, for there now unfolded a second career something like his first. He gained access to prominent people who were pleased to have him paint their portraits. He became a part of the most fashionable social life, where his charm as a wit and raconteur and his geniality made him most welcome. Again, he entertained lavishly, and again, his funds were not adequate to such a style. As the premier portraitist of Ireland, he had no serious rival; the best of the commissions was his. Some of his work was distinguished, notably a full-length portrait of Lord Fitzgibbon, through whom Stuart gained access to the highest ranks of official society and many resulting commissions. The process followed its course: artistic achievement and a splendid social life undercut by mounting personal debt. By the spring of 1793, Stuart was once again in full retreat; he and his family were on a boat for New York.

Once more, Stuart found that his reputation was known, and he soon had business. A portrait painted by a well-known artist is a luxury item, available only to the affluent, so it was inevitable that Stuart’s first contacts in New York City were made with the prosperous merchants and their social set. His most valuable connection came when he revived his acquaintance with John Jay (he had met him earlier in London), who was at this time chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Discussion of painting a portrait of George Washington commenced. Stuart himself is the source of the idea that it was for that, expressly, that he had moved to America, though that is obviously only a part of the truth, if an important part. A portrait of Jay done at this time is a valuable record of an extremely important figure in the founding of the new nation. It is also a reminder that it was in all probability Jay who persuaded Washington to sit for Stuart.

These were turbulent times, the middle 1790’s, with a mighty armed struggle in Europe and bitter political battles and even insurrection at home. It was in 1794 that Jay left the country on a diplomatic mission to Britain, and it was then, too, that the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania demanded Washington’s attention. Meanwhile, Stuart was extremely busy painting portraits of the prominent people—Revolutionary War heroes, political leaders, scions of distinguished families, and the like. Some of these works have been commended as examples of Stuart’s finest art, especially the portraits of Jay, the wife of Richard Yates, and the Spanish diplomat Don Josef de Jaudenes and his American wife.

Early in 1795, Stuart went to Philadelphia, which had been the nation’s temporary capital since 1790, with the assurance that he might paint Washington. The result was a bust portrait with the right side of the face toward the viewer, known now as the Vaughan type. Although Washington had already been painted many times, Stuart’s reputation was greater than those of earlier painters, and people were extremely eager to see his work. There was a brief public exhibition, and the praise for the picture was overwhelming. In the longer run, it has also been adjudged a solid critical success—some think it is Stuart’s best Washington. At the time, many people asked for copies of the portrait to be done by Stuart, and the artist obliged; at least seventeen copies are known to exist.

Washington’s second sitting for Stuart came the following year, 1796, through the influence of William Bingham, the Philadelphia businessman who was reputedly the richest person in the United States as well as a Federalist senator and a close friend of Washington. It was Bingham’s ambition to have his own portrait of Washington, to be a very large, full-length picture, done by Stuart. Washington, aging, busy, and weary, was most reluctant to spend time again sitting for a portrait, but at length he agreed. From those 1796 sittings came two more versions of Washington, as interpreted by Stuart. One, a full-length portrait, became known as the Landsdowne type. It shows the left side of Washington’s face; his left hand is holding a luxurious sword, and his right is extended and open as if speaking to an audience. In a slightly later version of this work, the right hand is touching papers on a table, and this has been praised as an improvement, along with other details that were changed.

The other 1796 portrait is his best-known one, known as the Athenaeum type. Curiously, this painting was never entirely finished, and Stuart retained it in his possession all of his life. Yet people wanted copies done by Stuart, and he obliged, usually charging $100—leading him to refer to the copies as his “one hundred dollar bills.” This, the best known of the many hundreds of Stuart portraits, is a truly extraordinary, subtle, incisive study of a great man in his final years. Stuart produced about seventy copies, sometimes a bit carelessly, and could have sold more if he had not been anxious to keep up with new subjects. The Washington portraits and the prints made from them kept him solvent for a while.

Stuart was soon busier than ever—too busy, perhaps. Even the removal of the government to the new capital on the Potomac did not lessen the demand for his portraits. He excelled often in portraits of women, including a charming one of Martha Washington. Some of his old infirmities returned to spoil his success: high living, careless handling of accounts, and capricious neglect of work, to which was now added recurrent illness and general poor health. Finally, in the summer of 1803, he arranged for his family to stay in Bordentown, New Jersey, while he proceeded to Washington, where he opened another studio. For two years, he painted dignitaries of the national government and various other prominent persons who came to the capital. His subjects included nearly all the names found in accounts of the political history of Jeffersonian America: all the presidents, vice presidents, cabinet members, and prominent congressmen and senators. Yet he was once more caught up in a web of personal and financial difficulties, compounded by a growing tendency to deceive even those who tried to help him. In 1805, he decided to move to Boston.

Again, he was much sought after, and he prospered for a time. His life was far from tranquil, however, and it appears that his artistic powers suffered some decline. His health was recurrently a problem, and he suffered periods of depression. He died on July 9, 1828, heavily in debt.

Significance

Among American painters of all times, Gilbert Stuart’s name may well be the most familiar, and it is invariably linked with Washington’s name. Some have disparaged the artistic merit of the Washington portraits, and certainly the most familiar one, the Athenaeum type, has suffered in painterly reputation from its very popularity. Yet Stuart has always had his champions in the artistic community who esteem these works; popularity of his works has proved relatively constant and durable, and they have provided most Americans with their idea of their country’s foremost founder. There is merit in the remark that if Washington came back to Earth and did not look like that portrait, he would be denounced as an impostor.

Those who take an interest in others of the founding generation find Stuart an invaluable guide to an acquaintance with them, too. With the important exception of Alexander Hamilton, there are surprisingly few people of importance in the early national history of the United States who cannot be better known through a careful viewing of a Stuart portrait.

It should be noted, furthermore, that Stuart’s great achievements were those of a person born into severely limiting circumstances who underwent much adversity in his struggle for success. To be sure, some of his difficulties were of his own making, even in the latter part of his early life, and ever more so in his later years. His many faults and flaws of character, though, were overcome time and again by a combination of courageous resourcefulness and very considerable artistic talent. Achievements in the fine arts must surely have been among the most implausible of expectations in colonial and revolutionary America. Stuart was among a small number of men who prevailed despite severely discouraging circumstances.

His success, both in the momentary appearances of prosperity and in the genuine artistic achievements, was important for the encouragement of the arts in early America. He was usually accessible and generous with his time and advice, as many younger artists attested. Stuart brought an international reputation to the American scene and built yet another one in this country. The United States became a far better country for having an artistic tradition, however neglected and underestimated it may have been for a time.

Bibliography

Barratt, Carrie Rebora, and Ellen G. Miles. Gilbert Stuart. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004. The catalog accompanying an exhibition of Stuart’s work displayed in 2004-2005 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Includes reproductions of more than ninety portraits and an essay describing how Stuart developed and maintained his distinctive style of portraiture. Also features essays on each site where Stuart produced his art and the paintings created there, as well as information on Stuart’s portraits of George Washington.

Evans, Dorinda. The Genius of Gilbert Stuart. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999. A comprehensive biography, tracing Stuart’s artistic development and influence. Evans examines Stuart’s ability to use portraiture to convey a sense of public virtue and social dignity in his subjects, citing his famed Athenaeum portrait of Washington as an example of his technique. She also describes his erratic personality, and suggests his behavior may have been caused by manic-depressive (bipolar) illness.

Flexner, James T. America’s Old Masters. Rev. ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1980. Flexner acquaints readers with Stuart and three of his contemporaries, though he treats Stuart somewhat harshly. A good presentation of successful early American artists. In 1955, the author published a biography of Stuart that was a slightly expanded version of this presentation, under the title Gilbert Stuart.

Gilbert Stuart: Portraitist of the Young Republic, 1755-1828. Providence: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1967. The catalog of an exhibition of fifty-four carefully chosen portraits, held both in Providence and at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Valuable for its excellent introductory essay by Edgar P. Richardson and for the informative commentaries that accompany each of the fifty-four black-and-white illustrations.

Harris, Neil. The Artist in American Society: The Formative Years, 1790-1860. New York: George Braziller, 1966. Discusses the plight of the aspiring artist in the new nation. Nearly half of this perceptive portrayal of the cultural scene is directly useful for an appreciation of the kind of country Stuart found after he returned to the United States. Very thoughtful, with many interesting and provocative ideas.

Morgan, John Hill. Gilbert Stuart and His Pupils. New York: New York Historical Society, 1939. Mainly a series of brief sketches of twenty-three painters whose work was directly influenced by Stuart. Often the actual influence seems slight, but this small book (ninety-three pages) as a whole is effective in establishing Stuart as an important force in the work of painters such as John Vanderlyn, Thomas Sully, and Samuel Morse, who lived well into the nineteenth century. Also includes notes by Matthew Jouett from conversations with Stuart.

Mount, Charles M. Gilbert Stuart: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton, 1964. Mount, a painter and scholar, finds Stuart seriously flawed as a person, but he nevertheless asserts, in very strong terms, the greatness of some of Stuart’s work. Fascinating notes and superb catalog of Stuart’s known works.

Whitley, William T. Gilbert Stuart. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1932. A biography of sorts, somewhat superseded by that of Charles Mount. Whitley, however, took Stuart seriously when few others did, and he unearthed much important information and incorporated it into a book that is still good reading. Includes an abundance of anecdotes, some of dubious authenticity, told about the idiosyncratic painter.