John Smibert (24 March 1688 – 2 April 1751) was a Scottish-born painter who was the first academically trained artist to work inBritish America.^[1][2][3]

John Smibert
Aself-portrait of Smibert (c. 1739)
Born	24 March 1688 Edinburgh, Scotland
Died	2 April 1751 (aged 63) Boston, Massachusetts,British America
Known for	Portrait painting

Smibert was born inEdinburgh on 24 March 1688, the second youngest of six children of Alison and John Smibert, a litster, or wool dyer.^[4] From 1702 to 1709, he was apprenticed to a house painter and plasterer in Edinburgh. On moving to London in 1709^[5] he worked as acoach painter and copyist.

1713-1716, he studied underGodfrey Kneller at theGreat Queen Street Academy, then returned to Edinburgh, seeking work as portraitist.^[5] Smibert travelled to Italy from 1719 to 1722 to copy old masters, including some in the collection ofCosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany,^[6] and then settled in London where he worked as a portrait painter from 1722 until 1728.^[5]

Smibert became a member of theRose and Crown Club and made a sketch for a group portrait of its members, includingGeorge Vertue,John Wootton,Thomas Gibson,Bernard Lens III, and others.

Among his London portraits is one ofBishop Berkeley^[7] who, in 1728, enticed Smibert to accompany him to America, with the intention of becoming professor of fine arts in the college which Berkeley was planning to found inBermuda. The college, however, was never established, and Smibert settled in Boston, where he married in 1730.^[8] He lived at the corner ofBrattle Street andQueen-Street.^[9][10] He belonged to theScots Charitable Society of Boston.

In 1728, he began paintingDean George Berkeley and His Entourage, also calledThe Bermuda Group, which became one of the most influentialNew England portraits.^[11] It was commissioned by John Wainright, a patron of George Berkeley, and depicts the members of the planned expedition to Bermuda. The painting, now in theYale University Art Gallery, includes Berkeley at the right, Wainwright seated at left, and Smibert standing at the far left.^[12]

Smibert painted portraits ofJonathan Edwards and JudgeEdmund Quincy (in theMuseum of Fine Arts in Boston), Mrs Smibert,Peter Faneuil andGovernor John Endecott (in the Massachusetts Historical Society), John Lovell (Memorial Hall,Harvard University), and probably one ofSir William Pepperrell; and examples of his works are owned by Harvard and Yale Universities, byBowdoin College, by the Massachusetts Historical Society, and by the New England Historical and Genealogical Society.^[8]

In 1734, Smibert opened a shop where he sold paint, other artist's supplies, and prints. In his studio above the shop, he displayed casts and copies ofOld Masters that he had painted in Europe. This collection, which Richard Saunders has termed "America's first art gallery", provided much of the early artistic education forCharles Willson Peale,Gilbert Stuart, andJohn Trumbull.^[13]

Between 1740 and 1742, he served as architect for the originalFaneuil Hall, which he designed in the style of an English country market. The hall burned down in 1761 but was restored, and then in 1806 greatly expanded and modified byCharles Bulfinch.

His sonNathaniel was also a painter. Smibert lies in Tomb 62 in the Granary Burying Ground in Boston.^{[citation needed]}

•  
  Portrait of Edward Nightengale, ca.1722-1724
•  
  Benjamin Morland, oil on canvas, 1724.Yale Center for British Art
•  
  Elizabeth Davenport (Mrs. William Dudley), 1729,Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
•  
  ColonelJames Otaway, oil on canvas, 1724.Royal Sussex Regiment Museum
•  
  Portrait of Major GeneralPaul Mascarene, 1729 (LACMA)
•  
  Samuel Sewall, 1729,Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
•  
  Edward Winslow, c. 1730-1731,Yale University Art Gallery.
•  
  Francis Brinley, c. 1729,Metropolitan Museum of Art.
•  
  Portrait ofEdmund Quincy, in theMuseum of Fine Arts, Boston.
•  
  1730 portrait ofThomas Hancock in theMuseum of Fine Arts in Boston
•  
  Sir John Rushout, Bt by John Smibert
•  
  The Rev John Cotton 1690-1757 By Smibert
•  
  Catherine Winthrop Sargent, married 1744 as the second wife of Col.Epes Sargent (soldier), from a portrait bySmybert which is in theMuseum of Fine Arts, Boston.
•  
  Malachy Salter,Province House (Nova Scotia)

Primary sources

• Smibert, John (1969).The Notebook of John Smibert. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society.OCLC 6380 – via theInternet Archive.
• Vertue, George (1934). "The Note-Books of George Vertue Relating to Artists and Collections in England (III)".The Walpole Society.22. whole issue.JSTOR i40086509.

General studies

• Foote, Henry Wilder (1950).John Smibert, Painter With a Descriptive Catalogue of Portraits, and Notes on the Work of Nathaniel Smibert. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.OCLC 900850057 – via the Internet Archive.
• Saunders, Richard H. (1995).John Smibert: Colonial America's First Portrait Painter. New Haven, London: Yale University Press.ISBN 0-300-04258-2.OCLC 31607421.

Additional notes

• O'Donnell, C. Oliver (2017)."Depicting Berkeleyan Idealism: A Study of Two Portraits by John Smibert".Work and Image.33 (1):18–34.doi:10.1080/02666286.2016.1230698 – viaAcademia.edu.
• Deane, Charles; Perkins, Augustus T.; Wendell Holmes, Oliver (1878). "December Meeting, 1878".Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society.17:380–475.JSTOR 25079537. See pp. 385–399 for A. T. Perkins' reports, "Portraits by Blackburn" and "Portraits by Smibert"{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
• Rather, Susan (2016).The American School: Artists and Status in the Late-Colonial and Early National Era. New Haven, London: Yale University Press.ISBN 978-0-300-21461-1 – via the Internet Archive.
• Rebora, Carol; et al. (1995).John Singleton Copley in America (exhibition catalogue). New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, H. N. Abrams.ISBN 0-87099-744-0.OCLC 1244862408 – via the Internet Archive.

Reference works

• Bénézit, Emmanuel (2006) [first published in French in 1911–1923].Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Vol. 12. Paris: Gründ. p. 1349.ISBN 2-7000-3082-6 – via theInternet Archive.
• Cust, Lionel Henry (1897)."Smibert, John" . InLee, Sidney (ed.).Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 52. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 405.
• Kalfatovic, Martin R. (1999)."Smibert, John". InGarraty, John Arthur; Carnes, Marc Christopher (eds.).American National Biography. Vol. 20. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 118–120.ISBN 0-19-512799-4.OCLC 1028044182 – via the Internet Archive.
• Saunders, Richard H. (1996)."Smibert, John". In Turner, Jane (ed.).The Dictionary of Art. Vol. 28. New York: Grove's Dictionaries. pp. 869–871.ISBN 1-884446-00-0.OCLC 1033666104 – via the Internet Archive.
• Saunders, Richard H. (2004)."Smibert, John". In Matthew, H. C. G. & Harrison, Brian (eds.).Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 50. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. p. 1001.ISBN 0-19-861400-4.OCLC 1035757202 – via the Internet Archive.
• Sizer, Theodore (1935)."Smibert, John". InMalone, Dumas (ed.).Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. 17. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 228–230.OCLC 1042927728 – via the Internet Archive.
• Vollmer, Hans, ed. (1937). "Smibert (Smybert), John".Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler (in German). Vol. 31. Leipzig: E. A. Seemann. pp. 158–159.

• Works by John Smibert atFaded Page (Canada)
• John Singleton Copley in America, a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on John Smibert (see index)