Gilbert Stuart

Art Brokerage: Gilbert Stuart American Artist: b. 1755 - 1828. Gilbert Stuart began his career as a provincial portrait painter in the American colonies and eventually went to London for further training. Under the generous tutelage of expatriate Benjamin West, Stuart quickly mastered the painterly brushwork of the Grand Manner, which was the favored style of Sir Joshua Reynolds, the leading portraitist of the day. Stuart realized that portrait painting could be a very lucrative business, so he opened what became a successful portrait studio in London. His extravagant tastes however left him with ever-growing debts, which he avoided by fleeing in 1787 to Ireland and establishing another profitable studio. Again, in 1793, Stuart was unable to live within his means, and he escaped to New York to avoid debtors' prison. According to art historian, Wayne Craven, this brilliant master loaded his brush and with slashing strokes almost instantly created, or at least convincingly suggested, the desired form. He painted directly on the canvas and, without benefit of a preliminary drawing, completed the work in a couple of brief sittings. In this manner Stuart produced a prodigious number of portraits.