John Neagle (November 4, 1796 – September 17, 1865) was a fashionable American

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

, primarily of portraits, during the first half of the 19th century in Philadelphia.

Biography

Neagle was born in

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. His training in art began with instruction from the drawing-master Pietro Ancora and an apprenticeship to Thomas Wilson, a well-connected painter of signs and coaches in Philadelphia. Wilson introduced him to the painters

Bass Otis Bass Otis (July 17, 1784 - November 3, 1861), was an early American artist, inventor, and portrait painter. He painted hundreds of portraits including many of the best known Americans of his day, and produced the first American lithograph in 1819 ...

and

Thomas Sully Thomas Sully (June 19, 1783November 5, 1872) was an English-American portrait painter. He was born in England, became a naturalized American citizen in 1809, and lived most of his life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, including in the Thomas Sull ...

, and Neagle became a protégé of the latter. In 1818 Neagle decided to concentrate exclusively on

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...

s, setting up shop as an independent master. Aside from brief sojourns in

Lexington, Kentucky Lexington is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city coterminous with and the county seat of Fayette County, Kentucky, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census the city's population was 322,570, making it the List of ...

, and

New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

, he spent his career in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, where he died. In May 1826 he married Sully's stepdaughter Mary, and for a time the son-in-law and father-in-law dominated the field of portraiture in the city. Neagle served as Director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and was also a founder and president (1835–43) of the Artist's Fund Society of Philadelphia.

Works

Neagle's sitters included society figures, politicians, professionals and merchants, all of whom he treated with an incisive attention to psychology and an often dazzling brushwork derived (by way of Sully and

Sir Thomas Lawrence Sir Thomas Lawrence (13 April 1769 – 7 January 1830) was an English people, English portrait painter and the fourth president of the Royal Academy. A child prodigy, he was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was a ...

) ultimately from

van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (; ; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Spanish Netherlands and Italy. The seventh child of Frans van Dyck, a wealt ...

. His most impressive works are, arguably, the full-length allegorical ''Portrait of

Henry Clay Henry Clay (April 12, 1777June 29, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the United States Senate, U.S. Senate and United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives. He was the seventh Spea ...

'' ( Union League, Philadelphia), and the unconventional and brutally heroic '' Pat Lyon at the Forge'' ( Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). The latter reached a much wider audience after it was

engraved Engraving is the practice of incising a design on a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an inta ...

by Thomas Kelly and published in '' The Atlantic Souvenir'' annual gift book volume for 1832. Other Neagle sitters included Vice President

Richard Mentor Johnson Richard Mentor Johnson (October 17, 1780 – November 19, 1850) was an American lawyer, military officer and politician who served as the ninth vice president of the United States from 1837 to 1841 under President Martin Van Buren. He is ...

, Governor John Jordan Crittenden of Kentucky, Congressman James Harper and his wife Charlotte, the

Marquis de Lafayette Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette, Marquis de La Fayette (; 6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (), was a French military officer and politician who volunteered to join the Conti ...

, Bishop William Meade, Dr. William Potts Dewees, author

James Fenimore Cooper James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonial and indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought h ...

, fellow painter

Gilbert Stuart Gilbert Stuart ( Stewart; December 3, 1755 – July 9, 1828) was an American painter born in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Rhode Island Colony who is widely considered one of America's foremost portraitists. His best-k ...

, actor Edwin Forrest and the architects William Strickland, John Haviland and

Thomas Ustick Walter Thomas Ustick Walter (September 4, 1804 – October 30, 1887) was an American architect. He worked on more than 400 projects, including Moyamensing Prison and Girard College in Philadelphia. He served as the fourth Architect of the Capitol, ...

as well as Pawnee Indian and hero of the whites Petalesharo.Ewers, John C. (1988): ''Indian Life on the Upper Missouri''. Norman and London. His papers are housed at the

Historical Society of Pennsylvania The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a historic research facility headquartered on Locust Street in Center City Philadelphia. It is a repository for millions of historic items ranging across rare books, scholarly monographs, family chron ...

, which hosted a retrospective exhibition of his work in 1989 (with scholarly catalogue by Robert Torchia). Sixteen paintings of actors in character by Neagle are housed in the library at The Players in New York City.

Gallery

File:John Neagle Gilbert Stuart.jpg, ''

;'' 1825,

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...

File:Mathew Carey by John Neagle, 1825.jpg, ''

Mathew Carey Mathew Carey (January 28, 1760 – September 16, 1839) was an Irish-born American publisher and economist who lived and worked in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In Dublin, he had engaged in the cause of parliamentary reform, and in America, attract ...

'', 1825 File:1828, Neagle, John, John Kintzing Kane.jpg, '' John Kintzing Kane'', 1828,

Princeton University Art Museum The Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) is the Princeton University gallery of art, located in Princeton, New Jersey. With a collecting history that began in 1755, the museum was formally established in 1882, and now houses over 117,000 work ...

File:John Haviland MET DT243863.jpg, '' John Haviland'' 1828,

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

File:John Neagle Dr. William Potts Dewees.jpg, '' Dr. William Potts Dewees'', 1833,

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

File:John Neagle The Studious Artist.jpg, ''The Studious Artist: Portrait of Thomas Birch'' 1836, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts File:John B. Neagle - Henry Clay - Google Art Project.jpg, ''

'' 1842,

National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: * National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra * National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London ...

File:John Neagle George Dodd.jpg, ''George Dodd'', ,

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

File:John Neagle Julia Dodd.jpg, ''Julia Dodd'' (Mrs. George Dodd), c. 1852,

File:Neagle.JPG, Portrait of a gentleman in black. Private collection

References

External links

*Th
John Neagle papers and related items
consisting mostly of volumes related to his work and cased photographs, are available for research use at the

{{DEFAULTSORT:Neagle, John 1796 births 1865 deaths Painters from Boston 19th-century American painters 19th-century American male artists American male painters Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts faculty Painters from Philadelphia