Nathaniel Smibert (January 20, 1734 – November 8, 1756), was an American colonial artist in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
Province of Massachusetts
The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a colony in British America which became one of the thirteen original states of the United States. It was chartered on October 7, 1691, by William III and Mary II, the joint monarchs of the kingdoms of E ...
, active in the mid-18th century. He is considered to be the first portrait painter in America.
Biography
Born in Boston in 1734, Nathaniel Smibert trained as a painter with his father, artist
John Smibert
John Smibert (rarely spelled Smybert; ; 24 March 1688 – 2 April 1751) was a Scottish-born painter, regarded as the first academically trained artist to live and work regularly in British America.
Career
Born in Edinburgh on 24 March 1688, Smi ...
. He painted several portraits, notably of
Ezra Stiles
Ezra Stiles ( – May 12, 1795) was an American educator, academic, Congregationalist minister, theologian, and author. He is noted as the seventh president of Yale College (1778–1795) and one of the founders of Brown University. According ...
, architect
Peter Harrison, and Dorothy Wendell (in the Collection of Dr John L Hale, Boston). Smibert died young in 1756, at the age of twenty-two.
[Richard H. Saunders. ''John Smibert: Colonial America's First Portrait Pinter.'' Yale University Press, 1995.]
Image gallery
File:Ezra Stiles by Nathaniel Smibert 1756.jpeg, Portrait of Ezra Stiles, 1756
Image:JohnLovell byNathanielSmibert 18thc Harvard.png, Portrait of John Lovell, 18th century
File:Nathaniel Smibert Portrait of a Cleric.jpg, Portrait of an unidentified man, attributed to Nathaniel Smibert, 18th century
References
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Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Smybert, Nathaniel
1734 births
1756 deaths
18th-century American painters
18th-century American male artists
American male painters
Painters from Boston
18th century in Boston