Gilbert Stuart Self-Portrait at 24, c. 1778. Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828). Oil on Canvas. Bequest of Louisa Lee Waterhouse.
Gilbert Stuart was America’s great early portrait painter. He was born over a snuff mill in North Kingston, Rhode Island, and arrived to Newport virtually a penniless begger. He picked up artistic training from a traveling Scottish painter, Cosmo Alexander, and his gifts were soon recognized by Newport merchants who commissioned the earliest portraits of the teenaged Stuart. When the Revolutionary War began, Stuart studied and work in England. Upon his return to the United States twenty years later he quickly became the painter most in demand to honor the great men of the new Republic.
