Lesson Plans
Unit Introduction

Image 1:

John Singleton Copley
American, 1737-1815
Nathaniel Hurd, ca. 1765
Oil on canvas, 29 3/8 x 24 5/8"

Memorial Art Gallery
Marion Stratton Gould Fund, 44.2

Image 2:

John Singleton Copley
American, 1737-1815
Nathaniel Hurd, ca. 1765
Oil on canvas, 30 3/8 x 25 3/8"

Cleveland Museum of Art
Gift of John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust

Information:

John Singleton Copley was the premier portrait artist in America prior to the American Revolution. He was the favorite of Boston's upper class because of his amazing talent in satisfying his patrons' taste for portraits that were both realistic and flattering. During this time in American history, portrait artists were not valued for their intense creativity and individuality as they are in today's society, but rather for their ability to portray their subjects in a realistic manner. As a matter of fact, artists were considered to be just one other kind of tradesman, like a silversmith or a milliner. Artists learned their skill like any other trade, through an apprenticeship.

Although colonial Boston society did not differentiate artists from other tradesmen, Copley strongly believed in the value of his individuality and creativity as central to his artistic career. He said, regarding his patrons in America, "the people generally regard [painting] no more than any other useful trade, as they sometimes term it, like that of a Carpenter tailor or shew maker [sic], not as one of the most noble Arts in the World (Staiti, p35)." In this statement, Copley expresses his belief that the skill of painting is superior to those skills of other trades.

Yet, just like the Boston silversmiths, Nathaniel Hurd and Paul Revere, Copley also learned his trade through an apprenticeship. Colonial America had no significant artistic history to draw influence from or schools for artists-in-training like those in Europe. This left Copley no choice but to learn his skill through the traditional apprenticeship and his subsequent self-training.

Copley was introduced to the art world through his apprenticeship with his stepfather, Peter Pelham, a well-known engraver from England. Copley gained a great deal of guidance and artistic knowledge about European art from his stepfather, who died when Copley was only thirteen years old. After his stepfather passed away, Copley continued to look to the art of Europe for his influence and education. Many of Copley's portraits show his American patrons with clothes, objects, and settings modeled after prints of European portraits (Stebbins, p 79). Without a teacher to guide him in his style and subject matter, Copley trained himself to be a better artist based upon European sources. He copied anatomy drawings from European books because the nude model was still considered taboo in American culture. He also read many European theoretical treatises on art and kept correspondence with two of the major artists in England at the time, Joshua Reynolds and the American ex-Patriot, Benjamin West.

Vocabulary:

portrait - a work of art that represents a specific person.

patron - a wealthy person who financially supports an artist, or pays them to create art for them.

milliner - a person who designs or makes women's hats.

trade - another name for the occupations people had during the colonial era. Usually it required some prior training through an apprenticeship during which time the necessary skills would be learned.

apprenticeship - a common way for young men to learn a trade during colonial times. Boys were often apprenticed to a master tradesman for a prescribed period of time to acquire the skills of the trade by watching and working with their experienced master.

silversmith - one whose occupation is making and repairing articles of silver.

engraver - a tradesman who cuts letters and designs into a surface from which prints are made.

Sources:

King, Penny and Roundhill, Clare. Artist's Workshop: Portraits. Crabtree Publishing Company

*This book contains creative suggestions and activities on how kids can make portraits. These activities include a historical element by using portraits by well-known artists as examples.

Rebora, Carrie, "Transforming Colonists into Goddesses and Sultans: John Singleton Copley, His Clients, and Their Studio Collaboration," The American Art Journal, vol. XXVII, numbers 1 & 2, 1995-1996. pp. 4-37

Saunders, Richard H. and Miles, Ellen G. American Colonial Portraits: 1700-1776. Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Portrait Gallery, Washington City, 1987.

Staiti, Paul, "Accounting for Copley," in Rebora, Carrie and Staiti, Paul, et. al. John Singleton Copley in America. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, 1995. pp. 25-51

Stebbins Jr., Theodore E. "An American Despite Himself," in Rebora, Carrie and Staiti, Paul, et. al. John Singleton Copley in America. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, 1995. pp. 79-102

Relevant website:

http://www.nga.gov/feature/watson/index.html

"Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley" at the National Gallery of Art

*This website looks at Copley's painting Watson and the Shark, which he painted in London after leaving America. This site focuses upon the story behind the painting, the artist, the formal elements of the painting, and the historical and artistic influences on Copley.

Suggested Lesson:

Artists in Colonial America: John Singleton Copley