Benjamin West

House that Benjamin West was born in, drawn by John Sartain in 1837

External video
Introducing Benjamin West, Royal Academy of Art[1]
Lecture 7. Benjamin West's Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus, 57:08, Yale University

West was born in Springfield, Pennsylvania, in a house that is now in the borough of Swarthmore on the campus of Swarthmore College,[2] as the tenth child of an innkeeper and his wife. The family later moved to Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, where his father was the proprietor of the Square Tavern, still standing in that town. West told the novelist John Galt, with whom, late in his life, he collaborated on a memoir, The Life and Studies of Benjamin West (1816, 1820) that, when he was a child, Native Americans showed him how to make paint by mixing some clay from the river bank with bear grease in a pot. Benjamin West was an autodidact; while excelling at the arts, "he had little [formal] education and, even when president of the Royal Academy, could scarcely spell".[3] One day his mother left him alone with his little sister Sally. Benjamin discovered some bottles of ink and began to paint Sally's portrait. When his mother came home, she noticed the painting, picked it up and said, “Why, it’s Sally!” and kissed him. Later, he noted, "My mother's kiss made me a painter."[4]

Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky c. 1816 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

From 1746 to 1759, West worked in Pennsylvania, mostly painting portraits. While West was in Lancaster in 1756, his patron, a gunsmith named William Henry, encouraged him to paint a Death of Socrates based on an engraving in Charles Rollin's Ancient History. His resulting composition, which significantly differs from the source, has been called "the most ambitious and interesting painting produced in colonial America".[5] Dr William Smith, then the provost of the College of Philadelphia, saw the painting in Henry's house and decided to become West's patron, offering him education and, more importantly, connections with wealthy and politically connected Pennsylvanians. During this time West met John Wollaston, a famous painter who had immigrated from London. West learned Wollaston's techniques for painting the shimmer of silk and satin, and also adopted some of "his mannerisms, the most prominent of which was to give all his subjects large almond-shaped eyes, which clients thought very chic".[6]

West was a close friend of Benjamin Franklin, whose portrait he painted. Franklin was the godfather of West's second son, Benjamin.

Sponsored by Smith and William Allen, then reputed to be the wealthiest man in Philadelphia, West traveled to Italy in 1760 in the company of the Scot William Patoun, a painter who later became an art collector. In common with many artists, architects, and lovers of the fine arts at that time he conducted a Grand Tour. West expanded his repertoire by copying works of Italian painters such as Titian and Raphael direct from the originals. In Rome he met a number of international neo-classical artists including German-born Anton Rafael Mengs, Scottish Gavin Hamilton, and Austrian Angelica Kauffman.[7]

As painted by James Smith in 1770 (National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.)

In August 1763, West arrived in England,[8] on what he initially intended as a visit on his way back to America.[8] In fact, he never returned to America. He stayed for a month at Bath with William Allen, who was also in the country, and visited his half-brother Thomas West at Reading at the urging of his father. In London he was introduced to Richard Wilson and his student Joshua Reynolds.[9] He moved into a house in Bedford Street, Covent Garden. The first picture he painted in England Angelica and Medora, along with a portrait of General Monckton,[10] and his Cymon and Iphigenia, painted in Rome, were shown at the exhibition in Spring Gardens in 1764.

In 1765 he married Elizabeth Shewell, an American to whom he became engaged in Philadelphia, at St Martin-in-the-Fields.[11]

Dr Markham, then Headmaster of Westminster School, introduced West to Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke,[12] Thomas Newton, Bishop of Bristol, James Johnson, Bishop of Worcester, and Robert Hay Drummond, Archbishop of York. All three prelates commissioned work from him.[13] In 1766 West proposed a scheme to decorate St Paul's Cathedral with paintings. It was rejected by the Bishop of London, but his idea of painting an altarpiece for St Stephen Walbrook was accepted.[14] At around this time he also received acclaim for his classical subjects, such as Orestes and Pylades and The Continence of Scipio.[14][15]

As painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1783–84

Benjamin West was known in England as the "American Raphael". His Raphaelesque painting of Archangel Michael Binding the Devil is in the collection of Trinity College, Cambridge.[16] He said that "Art is the representation of human beauty, ideally perfect in design, graceful and noble in attitude."[17]

The Death of General Wolfe

The Death of General Wolfe, 1770

West painted his most famous, and possibly most influential painting, The Death of General Wolfe, in 1770 and it exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1771. The painting became one of the most frequently reproduced images of the period. It returned to the French and Indian War setting of his General Johnson Saving a Wounded French Officer from the Tomahawk of a North American Indian of 1768. When the American Revolution broke out in 1776 he remained ambivalent, and neither spoke out for or against the Revolutionary War in his land of birth.

West became known for his large scale history paintings, which use expressive figures, colours and compositional schemes to help the spectator to identify with the scene represented. West called this "epic representation". His 1778 work The Battle of the Boyne portrayed William of Orange's victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, and strongly influenced subsequent images of William. In 1806 he produced The Death of Nelson, to commemorate Horatio Nelson's death at the Battle of Trafalgar.

Later religious painting

The east window at St Paul's Church, Birmingham

St Paul's Church, in the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham, has an important enamelled stained glass east window made in 1791 by Francis Eginton, modelled on an altarpiece painted c. 1786 by West, now in the Dallas Museum of Art.[24][25] It shows the Conversion of Paul. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1791.[26]

West is also well known for his huge work in the Chapel of St Peter and St Paul which now forms part of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London. His work, The Preservation of St Paul after a Shipwreck at Malta, measures 25 ft by 14 ft and illustrates the Acts of the Apostles: 27 & 28. West also provided the designs for the other paintings executed by Biaggio Rebecca in the chapel.

Following a loss of royal patronage at the beginning of the 19th century, West began a series of large-scale religious works. The first, Christ Healing the Sick was originally intended as a gift to Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia; instead he sold it to the British Institution for £3,000, which in turn presented it to the National Gallery.[11][27] West then made a copy to send to Philadelphia. The success of the picture led him to paint a series of even larger works, including his Death on the Pale Horse, exhibited in 1817.[11]

• 
  Robert Monckton, 1762
• 
  Pylades and Orestes Brought as Victims before Iphigenia, 1766
• 
  Treaty of Penn with Indians, 1772
• 
  Isaac's Servant Tying the Bracelet on Rebecca's Arm, 1775
• 
  Two Officers and a Groom in a Landscape, 1777, Princeton University Art Museum
• 
  Welsh moral philosopher Richard Price, 1784
• 
  Death of a Stag or Alexander III of Scotland Rescued from the Fury of a Stag by the Intrepidity of Colin Fitzgerald, 1786
• 
  King Lear and Cordelia, 1793
• 
  The Woman Clothed with the Sun Fleeth from the Persecution of the Dragon, c. 1797, Princeton University Art Museum
• 
  Joshua passing the River Jordan with the Ark of the Covenant, 1800
• 
  Cupid and Psyche, 1808
• 
  Omnia Vincit Amor, 1809
• 
  John Eardley Wilmot, 1812
• 
  Self-Portrait, 1819
• 
  Treaty of Paris depicts the American delegation at the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The British delegation refused to pose, and the painting was never completed, 1783–1784.
• 
  The Battle of La Hogue, c. 1778, National Gallery of Art

• John Sedley, view
• Portrait of a Gentleman, view
• Presentation of the Queen of Sheba at the Court of King Solomon, view
• The Envoys Returning from the Promised Land, view

• Angelo, Henry (1828). Reminiscences of Henry Angelo, with memoirs of his late father and friends, including numerous original anecdotes and curious traits of the most celebrated characters that have flourished during the last eighty years (Vol. 1). London: H. Colburn.
• John Galt: The life and studies of Benjamin West ... prior to his arrival in England; Publisher: Moses Thomas, Philadelphia (1816)
• John Galt: The Life, Studies, and Works of Benjamin West, Esq., President of the Royal Academy of London Publisher: Printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies. (1820)
• John Galt: The progress of genius : or authentic memoirs of the early life of Benjamin West. Abridged for the use of young persons. Publisher: Leonard C. Bowles. Boston (1832)
• John Galt, The Life and Studies of Benjamin West, Esq. (1816).
• Helmut von Erffa and Allen Staley, The Paintings of Benjamin West (New Haven, 1986).
• Ann Uhry Abrams, The Valiant Hero: Benjamin West and Grand-Style History Painting (Washington, 1985).
• James Thomas Flexner, "Benjamin West's American Neo-Classicism," New-York Historical Society Quarterly 36, 1 (1952), 5–41, rept. in America's Old Masters (New York, 1967), 315–40.
• Susan Rather. Benjamin West, John Galt, and the Biography of 1816. The Art Bulletin, Vol. 86, No. 2 (Jun. 2004), pp. 324–45
• Sherman, Frederic Fairchild, American Painters of Yesterday and Today, 1919, Priv. print in New York. Chapter: Benjamin West:https://archive.org/stream/americanpainters00sheriala#page/62/mode/2up

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Benjamin West (category)

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article West, Benjamin.

• "West, Benjamin" . Dictionary of National Biography. 1885–1900.
• Works by Benjamin West at Faded Page (Canada)
• The Winterthur Library Overview of an archival collection on Benjamin West.
• Royal Academy Collections website Loyd Grossman talking about West's work
• Union List of Artist Names, Getty Vocabularies. ULAN Full Record Display for Benjamin West. Getty Vocabulary Program, Getty Research Institute. Los Angeles, California.
• The Benjamin West Drawings Collection, including 33 of his drawings and sketches, is available for research use at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
• Documenting the Gilded Age: New York City Exhibitions at the Turn of the 20th Century. A New York Art Resources Consortium project. Annotations and a pencil sketch of a West painting in an exhibition catalog.
• 103 paintings by or after Benjamin West at the Art UK site