Title
The painter's chair : George Washington and the making of American art / Hugh Howard.
Edition
1st U.S. ed.
ISBN
1596912448 (alk. paper)
9781596912441 (alk. paper)
Publication Details
New York : Bloomsbury Press, 2009.
Language
English
Description
xix, 297 p., [16] p. of plates : ill. (chiefly col.) ; 25 cm.
Call Number
N7628.W3 H42 2009
Dewey Decimal Classification
757/.3097309033
Summary
From the Publisher: An eloquent new look at the beginnings of the American republic-through the portraits of its first icon, George Washington, and the painters who defined him. "I am so hackneyed to the touches of the painter's pencil, that I am now altogether at their beck-no dray moves more readily to the Thill, than I do to the Painters Chair."--George Washington, May 16, 1785. When George Washington was born, the New World had virtually no artists. Over the course of his life and career, a cultural transformation would occur. Virtually everyone regarded Washington as America's indispensable man, and the early painters and sculptors were no exception. Hugh Howard brings to life the founding fathers of American painting, and the elusive Washington himself, through the history of their portraits. We meet Charles Willson Peale, the comrade-in-arms; John Trumbull, the aristocrat; Benjamin West, the mentor; and Gilbert Stuart, the brilliant wastrel and most gifted painter of his day. Howard's narrative traces Washington's interaction with these and other artists, while offering a fresh and intimate portrait of the first president. The Painter's Chair is an engaging narrative of how America's first painters toiled to create an art worthy of the new republic, and of the hero whom they turned into an icon.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 273-285) and index.
The players
A Washington timeline
An accidental gallery
The first likeness
The General
The finest statuary of the world
Remembering the founding father
Friends & family: Martha Dandridge Custis Washington
Tobias Lear
Eleanor "Nelly" Parke Custis Lewis
George Washington "Wash" Parke Custis
Dr. James Craik
William Lee
The Marquis de Lafayette
The artists: John Smibert
John Singleton Copley
Charles Willson Peale
Colonel John Trumbull
Benjamin West
Gilbert Stuart
Jean-Antoine Houdon
Edward Savage
Rembrandt Peale.
