biografía de John GREENWOOD (1727-1792)

Lugar de nacimiento: Boston

Lugar de defunción: Margate (England)

Direcciones: Boston, till 1752; Surinam, 1752-58; Holland, 1758-62; England, from 1763

Profesión: Portrait painter and engraver

Estudios: apprenticed to the engraver Thomas Johnston, Boston (c.1742-c.1745)

Obra: BMFA ; NGA (Wash., DC); St Louis (MO) Art Museum; the NYHS owns two notebooks, one of which recounts his stay in Surinam, from Dec. 1752 to April 1758, the other detailing a trip from Amsterdam to London and after, 1763-65 (both contain some sketches)

Comentarios: Of Greenwood's work, at least two prints made in Boston survive, one of them being the mezzotint portrait Jersey Nanny" (BMFA), which bears an inscription extolling the viewer to embrace the servant pictured as "your sister." Greenwood advertised the work in the Boston Gazette in 1748. Unusual in its choice of a servant as subject matter, it has been discussed (Saunders and Miles, 170) as being related to similar moral themes appearing in British art and literature, including Samuel Richardson's very popular novel of the 1740s, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded. By 1747, Greenwood had turned more toward portrait painting than engraving and over the next five years was well-patronized by residents of Boston and Salem. About 55 paintings survive from this period. He left Boston in 1752, at the age of 25, and went to Paramaribo, Surinam, a Dutch colony on the north coast of South America, where he painted over a hundred portraits during the next five and a half years. He also completed several genre paintings, including "Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam" (St. Louis Art Mus.). In 1758 he went to Holland where he specialized in engraving and helped reopen the Amsterdam Art Academy. He finally settled in London in 1762 and established himself as a dealer in art and curios, although he continued to do some painting, including a few landscapes.

Fuentes: G&W; Burroughs, John Greenwood in America; DNB; Weitenkampf, "John Greenwood; An American-born Artist in Eighteenth Century Europe, with a Checklist of His Etchings and Mezzotints"; Stauffer. More recently, see Saunders and Miles, 172-175 (with repros.)."

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