1755-1828 Gilbert Stuart was born in North Kingston, R.I., on Dec. 3, 1755. At the age of 13 or 14 he studied art with the Scottish painter Cosmo Alexander in Newport. With Alexander he made a tour of the South and a journey to Edinburgh, where Alexander died in 1772. For about a year Stuart remained, poverty-stricken, in Scotland, but finally, working as a sailor, he managed to get back to America. There he executed a few portraits in a hard limner fashion. With the Revolutionary War threatening, his family, who had Tory sympathies, fled to Nova Scotia, and Stuart sailed for London, where he remained from 1775 to 1787. For the first 4 or 5 years, Stuart served as the first assistant of American expatriate painter Benjamin West, who had rescued him from poverty. From the first, Stuart showed an interest only in portraiture and had no desire to go into the branch of history painting West practiced. After his apprenticeship, Stuart became London's leading portrait painter, next to Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, whose style he emulated, as in a rare full-length portrait of William Grant of Congalton as The Skater (ca. 1782). For a while Stuart lived in splendor, but being a bad businessman and a profligate spender, he was in constant debt. He lived in Ireland from 1787 to 1792 and then returned to America to make a fortune,  Related Paintings of Gilbert Stuart :. | Thomas Jefferson | John Quincy Adams | The Skater | Der Schlittschuhlaufer | Portrait of John Jay |
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Francois de Troy
French Baroque Era Painter, 1645-1730 was a French painter and engraver who became principal painter to King James II in exile at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Director of the Academie Royale de peinture et de sculpture. One of a family of artists, Troy was born in Toulouse, the son of Nicolas de Troy (1608 - 15 September 1684), a painter in that city,and was the brother of Jean de Troy (4 April 1638 - 25 June 1691).Troy was taught the basic skills of painting by his father, and perhaps also by the more worldly Antoine Durand. François de Troy is not to be confused with his son, the portrait painter Jean-François de Troy (1679-1752), who studied under him At some time after 1662, Troy went to Paris to study portrait painting under Claude Lefebvre (1633-1675) and Nicolas-Pierre Loir (1624 - C1679]. A. P. F. Robert-Dumesnil states that this occurred when Troy was aged twenty-four. In 1669, Troy married his master Nicolas-Pierre Loir's sister-in-law, Jeanne Cotelle. In 1671, he was approved by the Academie Royale de peinture et de sculpture. In 1674, he was received into the Academy as a history painter, with a reception piece (morceau de reception) entitled Mercure coupant la tete d'Argus ('Mercury cutting off the head of Argus'). Troy's early known works include tapestry designs for Madame de Montespan, one of the many mistresses of Louis XIV of France, and paintings with religious and mythological subjects. In the 1670s, he became friendly with Roger de Piles, who introduced him to Dutch and Flemish painting,
Fernand Hodler
Day I,1899-1900
Charles Loring Elliott
1812-1868. Elliott was born at Auburn, New York in the central part of the state. He began working as a painter in his region. After 10 years, he moved to New York City to study art under the painters John Trumbull and John Quidor, as well as to be in a bigger market for work. After practicing portrait painting in central New York State for 10 years, Elliott took up residence in New York City in 1845. The following year he was elected to the National Academy of Design, which was a measure of recognition and helped him attract more clients. Painting by Elliott of Samuel Putnam Avery, 1863Elliott was considered the best portraitist of his day. Although he never studied abroad, his technique is neither provincial nor uncertain. His method is mature, his drawing firm, his color fresh and clean, and his likenesses excellent, though somewhat lacking in sentiment.[citation needed] He was said to have painted over 700 portraits, mostly heads, as he had little idea of the composition of large canvases. He also painted figure pieces, including Don Quijote and Falstaff, and one landscape, The Head of Skaneateles Lake.