Important Early American Artists #4: John Singleton Copley

By J. M. Hochstetler

John Singleton Copley, Self Portrait (1780-84)

When I was in school I loved art class, and although it’s been a number of years since I’ve done any drawing or painting, my interest in the visual arts has continued throughout my life. Which is why I’ve been focusing on important early American artists in my last 3 three posts. Today I’m going to wrap up the series by taking a look at John Singleton Copley, who became famous in both America and England for his portraits and paintings of historical subjects and is generally acclaimed as the finest artist in colonial America.

Copley was born July 3, 1738, most likely in Boston, Massachusetts, to Richard and Mary Copley. Richard was from Limerick, while Mary was a Singleton from County Clare whose family was of Lancashire origin. They immigrated to Boston in 1736 and owned a tobacco shop on Long Wharf. Richard apparently arrived in America in ill health, however, and around the time of John's birth went to the West Indies, where he died in either 1737 or 1748, depending on the source you consult. In any case, he died previous to Mary’s wedding Peter Pelham on May 22, 1748.

Paul Revere (1768-70)

Little is known of Copley’s childhood. Pelham painted portraits and was an excellent engraver, however, which undoubtedly set Copley on the path to a career as a painter. Young Copley was around fourteen when his stepfather died, and about that same age Copley painted his half-brother Charles Pelham, his earliest extant portrait. More promising works followed during the next few years, and by the time he was 20 he was steadily employed in painting portraits. Copley’s works reveal a detailed knowledge of New England people and culture. Influenced by the Rococo style of Joseph Blackburn, Copley portrayed his subjects with objects relevant to their personal lives, like this one of Paul Revere, which gave his portraits an intimate sense of the person’s character and interests that was rare 18th-century American painting.

A Boy with a Flying Squirrel (1765)

Commissions from the foremost members of New England society made Copley a prosperous man. His income, extraordinary for New England in the 1760s, elevated him to the Boston aristocracy. But he was eager for wider recognition. In 1766 Benjamin West, a fellow countryman who had moved to London to pursue his own art career, entered Copley’s painting A Boy with a Flying Squirrel (1765), at left, in the annual Exhibition of the Society of Artists of Great Britain. The subject is Copley’s half-brother, Henry Pelham, seated at a table playing with a pet squirrel, and it gained Copley’s election as a Fellow of the Society. West urged him to come to England to study for several years, but although Copley continued to send pictures to the Exhibition, he hesitated to risk the prosperity he enjoyed in Boston for an uncertain future in England.

Copley Family (1776-77)

On November 16, 1769 Copley married a woman of impeccable social status. Susanna Farnham Clarke was the daughter of Richard and Elizabeth (Winslow) Clarke. Her father had become very wealthy as an agent of the East India Company in Boston, and her mother’s ancestors had arrived in America on the Mayflower. By all accounts the Copleys’ marriage was not only socially notable, but also a happy one. Susanna was a beautiful, poised woman, whose portrait Copley painted several times. He and Susanna welcomed six children into their family in a house he built on the west side of Beacon Hill, where they lived as members of the top tier of Boston society.

The only substantial time Copley left Boston during this period was in 1771 and 1772, when he spent seven-months painting in New York City and Philadelphia as the political situation in Boston was deteriorating. The tea destroyed in the Boston Tea Party had been consigned to his father-in-law, and his extended family were all Loyalists, which made it increasingly dangerous for him to stay in the area. He finally heeded the urging of West and others and sailed for England in June 1774 as many other American artists had done before him, leaving his mother, wife, and children behind until he could secure lodgings. In England he received a warm reception from West and England’s art community. In 1775 while he traveled through France and Italy to study the great works of art, his wife and children arrived in London, where they stayed with her brother-in-law, Henry Bromfield. Susanna’s father and brothers soon joined them in London. After Copley’s return he and his family settled in 25 George St., Hanover Square, where Copley, Susanna, and their son, John Singleton Copley, Jr., the future Lord Lyndhurst, lived until their deaths.

Watson and the Shark (1778)

Encouraged by the success of West and others, Copley ventured outside of portraiture and began to paint more historical pieces. His first important work in the genre was Watson and the Shark (1778), at left, which portrays an incident involving his friend and fellow artist Brook Watson, who at the age of 14 lost a leg in a shark attack while swimming in Havana harbor. The painting foreshadows one of the great themes of 19th-century Romantic art: man’s struggle against nature. Copley’s historical paintings were so successful because he went to great lengths to create excellent likenesses of the people in them and to include correct details of the historical period. He traveled throughout England to make studies of old portraits of the subjects he intended to paint as well as the actual historical locations. At the same time he continued to paint portraits of English royalty and famous British and American individuals.

Copley was elected as an associate member of the Royal Academy in 1776 and made a full member in 1783. Likely more politically liberal than his relatives, he maintained contact with many New Englanders, painting portraits of John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and other Bostonians when they visited England, and in 1791 he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His daughter Elizabeth married wealthy Gardiner Greene of Boston, whose descendants preserved much of the Copley family’s correspondence for posterity.

John Adams (1783)

Ultimately, although Copley’s intensive work habits certainly contributed to his success, the long hours at the easel and lack of regular exercise also took a toll on his health and disposition. A granddaughter recalled that he usually painted continuously from early morning until evening, when his wife or one of their daughters would read to him. In his latter years he struggled with depression made worse by the expense of maintaining his household and educating his son, John Singleton Copley, Jr., who in adulthood became a brilliant lawyer. As Copley’s own career waned, paintings that took years of labor remained unsold, forcing him to borrow heavily to cover household expenses. His physical and mental health declined as well, and he died of a stroke on September 9, 1815, deeply in debt. His daughter Mary wrote that “He was perfectly resigned and willing to die, and expressed his firm trust in God, through the merits of our Redeemer.” He was buried in Croydon Minster in Croydon, Surrey.

Copley became the greatest and most influential painter in colonial America, with a legacy that extended well into the nineteenth century. In Britain his greatest achievement was in developing contemporary history painting as a combination of history, idealism, and theater. Boston’s Copley Square, Copley Square Hotel, and Copley Plaza are named after him, as are Copley Township in Summit County, Ohio, and the Copley crater on the planet Mercury. In 1965 the U.S. Postal Service issued a 5-cent stamp commemorating the 150th anniversary of his death that features his daughter, Elizabeth Clark Copley, from his Portrait of the Copley Family (1776) above.

In this series I’ve covered John Trumbull, Benjamin West, Gilbert Stuart, and now John Singleton Copley. Please check out the links to those articles in their names above and answer the following questions.

1. What do you find the most interesting about one of these artists?

2. Which painting by any one of the artists are you most drawn to?
Please share, and I’ll share mine too!

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J. M. Hochstetler is the daughter of Mennonite farmers and a lifelong student of history. She is a professional editor, a publisher, and the author of award-winning historical fiction whose books have been endorsed by bestselling authors such as Lori Benton, Laura Frantz, and Jocelyn Green. Her American Patriot Series is the only comprehensive historical fiction series on the American Revolution. Book 6, Refiner’s Fire, released in 2019, and one more volume, Forge of Freedom, will complete the series. She is also the author of One Holy Night, the Christian Small Publishers 2009 Book of the Year, and co-authored the award-winning Northkill Amish Series with Bob Hostetler.