Benjamin West - American artist

Benjamin West (October 10, 1738 – March 11, 1820) was an Anglo-American painter of historical scenes around and after the time of the American War of Independence. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as the tenth kid of an innkeeper. West told John Galt, with whom, late in his life, he collaborated on a journal, The Life and Studies of Benjamin West (1816, 1820) that, when he was a child, Native Americans showed him how to make paint by combination of 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”(Hughes, 70). From 1746 to 1759, West worked in Pennsylvania, mostly painting portraits.

In 1763, West moved to England, where he was commissioned by King George III to generate portraits of members of the royal family. The king himself was twice painted by him. He painted his most famous and possibly most influential painting, The Death of General Wolfe, in 1770, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1771. Although at first snubbed by Reynolds and others as over ambitious, the painting became one of the most frequently reproduced images of the period.

As painted by Gilbert Stuart, 1783-84In 1772, King George appointed him historical artist to the court at a yearly fee of £1,000. West became friends with the English portraitist Sir Joshua Reynolds and founded the Royal Academy of Arts with Reynolds in 1768. He was the second leader of the Royal Academy from 1792 to 1805. He was re-elected in 1806 and was president until his death in 1820. He was Surveyor of the King’s Pictures from 1791 until his death.

www.bigtimearts.com