William Jennys (1774–1859), also known as J. William Jennys, was an American primitive portrait painter who was active from about 1790 to 1810. He traveled throughout New England seeking commissions in rural areas and small towns. He was the son of the self-taught itinerant portrait painter Richard Jennys (1735–1809), who was trained by and traveled with his father from about 1792 to 1808 His early works are characterized by broadly modeled faces with a minimum of costume detail and bare backgrounds. Both the costumes and backgrounds became more detailed as his career progressed. The

Connecticut Historical Society The Connecticut Historical Society (CHS) is a private, non-profit organization that serves as the official statewide historical society of Connecticut. Established in Hartford in 1825, the CHS is one of the oldest historical societies in the US. ...

(Hartford, Connecticut),

Currier Museum of Art The Currier Museum of Art is an art museum in Manchester, New Hampshire, in the United States. It features European and American paintings, decorative arts, photographs and sculpture. The permanent collection includes works by Picasso, Matisse, Mo ...

(Manchester, New Hampshire), the

Farnsworth Art Museum The Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, United States, is an art museum that specializes in American art. Its permanent collection includes works by such artists as Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully, Thomas Eakins, Eastman Johnson, Fitz Henry La ...

(Rockland, Maine), the Lyman Allyn Art Museum (New London, Connecticut), the

Honolulu Museum of Art The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. The museum has one of the largest single co ...

, the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

(New York City), the

Minneapolis Institute of Arts The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United Stat ...

, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.), the Rockefeller Folk Art Collection (

Colonial Williamsburg Colonial Williamsburg is a living-history museum and private foundation presenting a part of the historic district in the city of Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has 7300 employees at this location a ...

) the

Utah Museum of Fine Arts The Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) is the region's primary resource for culture and visual arts. It is located in the Marcia and John Price Museum Building in Salt Lake City, Utah on the University of Utah campus near Rice-Eccles Stadium. Works ...

(Salt Lake City), th
Museum of Arts and Sciences
(Daytona Beach) and Wake Forest University Fine Arts Gallery (Winston-Salem, North Carolina), are among the public collections holding work by William Jennys.

References

* Chotner, Deborah, ''American Naive Paintings'', Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1992.

External links

William Jennys in ArtCyclopedia
* https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/21651

Gallery

File:William Jennys - Mrs. Cooke.jpg, Portrait of Mrs. Cooke by William Jennys, oil on panel,

File:Col. Benjamin Simonds.png, Portrait of Col. Benjamin Simonds by William Jennys {{DEFAULTSORT:Jennys, William 18th-century American painters 18th-century American male artists American male painters 19th-century American painters 19th-century American male artists American portrait painters 1774 births 1859 deaths