American Neoclassical Painter, 1738-1820 American historical painter who worked in England. He was born in Springfield, Pa., in a house that is now a memorial museum at Swarthmore College. After some instruction from a local artist named William Williams, he set up as a portrait painter in Philadelphia at 18, subsequently moving to New York City. In 1760 he went to Europe, where he remained for the rest of his life. For three years he studied in Italy. Working under the tutelage of Anton Mengs, he was also inspired by the classical research of Johann Winckelmann. He then settled in London, becoming a leader of the neoclassical movement. Under the patronage of George III, commissions came to him in great numbers, and in 1772 he was appointed historical painter to the king. A founder of the Royal Academy, he succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as its president in 1792. West executed more than 400 canvases, chiefly historical, mythological, and religious subjects painted on a heroic scale. He had many pupils and was a generous friend and adviser to younger artists, particularly American painters studying in England, among whom were Washington Allston, Samuel Morse, Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart, and John Singleton Copley. His influence on American painting of the period was predominant. Among West's best-known works are Death of General Wolfe (Grosvenor Gall., London) and Penn's Treaty with the Indians (Pa. Acad. of the Fine Arts). In these paintings he created a new departure in historical painting by clothing his figures in the costume of their period instead of the traditional classical garb.  Related Paintings of WEST, Benjamin :. | The Death of General Wolfe | Portrait of Colonel Guy Johnson | Joseph Banks | Colonel Guy Johnson (mk08) | The Treaty of Penn with the Indians. |
Related Artists:
johan zacharias blackstadiusblackstadius
seated female model december1842. royal academy of fine arts
Abraham Jansz Van Diepenbeeck
1596-1675, Flemish glass-painter, draughtsman, painter and tapestry designer. His reputation rests primarily on his drawings and oil sketches, of which several hundred survive, intended mainly as designs for stained-glass windows and prints. He was strongly influenced by the work of other important Flemish artists of the late 16th century and early 17th, notably Rubens, whose motifs and stylistic elements he frequently reworked in his own compositions.
Orozco, Jose Clemente
Mexican, 1883-1949 Mexican mural painter. When he lost his left hand at age 17, he abandoned architectural studies for painting, pursuing Mexican themes. As a caricaturist for a revolutionary paper, he explored Mexico City's slums and painted a series of watercolours, House of Tears, on the lives of prostitutes. The reaction of moralists forced him to flee to the U.S. in 1917, but in 1919 the new government of Álvaro Obreg??n welcomed him back, and he joined Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros in creating large-scale murals for public buildings, in which he continued his radical social commentary. Again forced to abandon Mexico in 1927, he worked until 1934 in the U.S., where his style evolved and matured in murals from coast to coast. In 1934, his international reputation firmly established, he returned to Mexico and embarked on his most technically impressive and emotionally expressive murals, including Catharsis (1934),