Washington Bogart Cooper (September 18, 1802 – March 30, 1888) was an American portrait painter, sometimes known as "the man of a thousand portraits".James Hoobler,
Washington Bogart Cooper
" ''

Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture ''Tennessee Encyclopedia'' is a reference book on the U.S. state of Tennessee that was published in book form in 1998 and has also been available online since 2002. Contents include history, geography, culture, and biography. The original print e ...

''.Estill Curtis Pennington, ''Lessons in Likeness: Portrait Painters in Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley, 1802–1920 : Featuring Works from Filson Historical Society'', Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2011.
p. 122
/ref> Patti Carr Black, ''Art in Mississippi, 1720–1980'', Oxford, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 1998, p. 7

/ref>

Early life

Washington Bogart Cooper was born near

Jonesborough, Tennessee Jonesborough (historically also Jonesboro) is a town in, and the county seat of, Washington County, Tennessee, in the Southeastern United States. Its population was 5,860 as of 2020. It is "Tennessee's oldest town". Jonesborough is part of the ...

, on September 18, 1802, one of nine children. A brother, William Brown Cooper (1811–1890), also became a painter. As a child, he lived near

Carthage, Tennessee Carthage is a town in and the county seat of Smith County, Tennessee, United States; it is part of the Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,306 at the 2010 census. It is located on the Cumberland River, which was importan ...

and

Shelbyville, Tennessee Shelbyville is a city in and the county seat of Bedford County, Tennessee, United States. The town was laid out in 1810 and incorporated in 1819. Shelbyville had a population of 20,335 residents at the 2010 census. The town is a hub of the Tenness ...

. He studied art with

Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl (born 1785–1788; died Nashville, Tennessee September 16, 1838), also known as Ralph E. W. Earl or Ralph Eleazer Whiteside Earl, was an American painter known as the "court painter" to President Andrew Jackson. He also ...

Murfreesboro Murfreesboro is a city in and county seat of Rutherford County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 152,769 according to the 2020 census, up from 108,755 residents certified in 2010. Murfreesboro is located in the Nashville metropol ...

and settled in

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

in 1830. In 1831, he went to

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, to study art with

Thomas Sully Thomas Sully (June 19, 1783November 5, 1872) was a portrait painter in the United States. Born in Great Britain, he lived most of his life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He painted in the style of Thomas Lawrence. His subjects included nationa ...

and Henry Inman, and returned to Nashville in 1832.

Career

From 1837 to 1848, Cooper averaged thirty-five portraits a year. His portraits of Tennessee governors, commissioned by the

Tennessee Historical Society The Tennessee Historical Society is a historical society for the U.S. state of Tennessee. It was established in 1849. Its founding president from 1849 to 1856 was Nathaniel Cross, a Princeton-educated professor of Ancient Languages at the Universi ...

, can be seen in the

Tennessee State Capitol The Tennessee State Capitol, located in Nashville, Tennessee, is the seat of government for the U.S. state of Tennessee. It serves as the home of both houses of the Tennessee General Assembly–the Tennessee House of Representatives and the Tenn ...

and the

Tennessee State Museum The Tennessee State Museum is a large museum in Nashville depicting the history of the U.S. state of Tennessee. The current facility opened on October 4, 2018, at the corner of Rosa Parks Boulevard and Jefferson Street at the foot of Capitol Hil ...

in Nashville. He also did portraits for the

Methodist Episcopal Church, South The Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MEC, S; also Methodist Episcopal Church South) was the American Methodist denomination resulting from the 19th-century split over the issue of slavery in the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC). Disagreement ...

, and the

Grand Lodge of Tennessee The Grand Lodge of Tennessee, officially the Grand Lodge of the Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of Tennessee, is the main governing body of Freemasonry within Tennessee. This Grand Lodge was established in ...

, as well as a portrait of Alexander Campbell. The Tennessee State Museum holds fifty of his portraits. His account book can be found on

microfilm Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either photographic film, films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the origin ...

in the

Tennessee State Library and Archives The Tennessee State Library and Archives (TSLA), established in 1854, currently operates as a unit of the Tennessee Department of State. According to the Tennessee Blue Book, the Library and Archives "collects and preserves books and records of hi ...

.Guide to Manuscript Materials on Microfilm : MF. 100 - MF. 199

, retrieved March 25, 2013. Some of his portraits are in

Natchez, Mississippi Natchez ( ) is the county seat of and only city in Adams County, Mississippi, United States. Natchez has a total population of 14,520 (as of the 2020 census). Located on the Mississippi River across from Vidalia in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, N ...

, where he made a trip with his brother.

Personal life

In 1839, Cooper married Ann Litton from

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

, Ireland. The couple had four children: James (1840–1843), James Litton (1844–1924), Kate (1846–1919), and Joseph Litton (1849–1936). A portrait of the three younger children is displayed in the Tennessee State Museum. The artist's family has a portrait that Cooper painted of his wife in about 1842. It is unlike his typical work, in that it shows the subject in profile, reading. It is considered to resemble

Jean-Honoré Fragonard Jean-Honoré Fragonard (; 5 April 1732 (birth/baptism certificate) – 22 August 1806) was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific ar ...

's ''

A Young Girl Reading ''Young Girl Reading'', or ''The Reader'' (french: La Liseuse), is an 18th-century oil painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. It depicts an unidentified girl seated in profile, wearing a lemon yellow dress with white ruff collar and cuffs and purple ...

''.

Death

Washington Cooper died of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

on March 30, 1888, at the age of eighty-five, and he is buried in the Mount Olivet Cemetery in Nashville. 22-20-063 border

References

External links