John Trumbull

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John Trumbull (Template:IPAc-en; June 6, 1756Template:SndNovember 10, 1843) was a Revolutionary War veteran and an American artist of the early independence period, notable for his historical paintings of the American Revolutionary War. He has been called The Painter of the Revolution.<ref></ref>

Trumbull's Declaration of Independence (1817), one of his four paintings which hang in the United States Capitol Rotunda, was used on the reverse of the commemorative bicentennial two-dollar bill.

Early life

Trumbull was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, in 1756, to Jonathan Trumbull and Faith (née Robinson) Trumbull. His father served as Governor of Connecticut from 1769 to 1784. Both sides of his family were descended from early Puritan settlers in the state.

He had two older brothers, Joseph Trumbull, the first commissary general of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, and Jonathan Trumbull Jr., who would become the second Speaker of the House of the United States.

The young Trumbull entered the 1771 junior class at Harvard College at age fifteen and graduated in 1773. Due to a childhood accident, Trumbull lost use of one eye. This may have influenced his detailed painting style.<ref name=time1956>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Revolutionary War

As a soldier in the American Revolutionary War, Trumbull rendered a particular service at Boston by sketching plans of the British and American lines and works<ref>Sketch of British and American Lines and Fortifications in Boston Area by John Trumbull, 1775.</ref>. He witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill. He was appointed second aide-de-camp to General George Washington, and in June 1776, deputy adjutant-general to General Horatio Gates.<ref name="EB1911">Template:EB1911</ref> He resigned from the army in 1777 after a dispute over the dating of his officer commission.

In 1780, with funds depleted, Trumbull turned to art as a profession. He traveled to London, where upon introduction from Benjamin Franklin, Trumbull studied under Benjamin West. At West's suggestion, Trumbull painted small pictures of the War of Independence and miniature portraits. He painted about 250 in his lifetime.Template:Sfnp

On September 23, 1780, British agent Major John André was captured by Continental troops in North America; he was hanged as a spy on October 2, 1780. After news reached Great Britain, outrage flared and Trumbull was arrested, as having been an officer in the Continental Army of similar rank to André.<ref name="EB1911"/> He was imprisoned for seven months in London's Tothill Fields Bridewell.Template:Sfnp<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

After being released, Trumbull returned to the United States in a voyage that lasted six months, ending late January 1782. He then joined his brother David in supplying the army stationed at New Windsor, New York during the winter of 1782–83.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

Postwar years

File:John Trumbull Gilbert Stuart 1818.jpeg
John Trumbull, painted by Gilbert Stuart, 1818

In 1784, following Britain's recognition of the United States independence, Trumbull returned to London for painting study under West. His first major work, The Deputation from the Senate Presenting to Cincinnatus the Command of the Roman Armies, was accepted and displayed by the Royal Academy of Arts in that year. In this work, Trumbull had painted Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus in the likeness of George Washington. The painting is now unlocated.Template:Sfnp While working in his studio, Trumbull painted Battle of Bunker Hill and Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec. Both works are now in the Yale University Art Gallery.

In July 1786, Trumbull went to Paris, where he made portrait sketches of French officers for the Surrender of Lord Cornwallis. With the assistance of Thomas Jefferson, serving there as the American minister to France, Trumbull began the early composition of the Declaration of Independence.<ref></ref>Template:Sfnp<ref name="EB1911"/> Over the next 5 years Trumbull painted small portraits of signers, which he would later use to piece together the larger painting. If the signer was deceased, a previous portrait would be copied, as was the case with Arthur Middleton, whose head position stands out in the painting. While visiting with each signer or their family, Trumbull, always looking for funding, used the occasion to sell subscriptions to engravings that would be produced from his paintings of the American Revolution.Template:Sfnp

While in Paris, Trumbull is credited with having introduced Jefferson to the Italian painter Maria Cosway; they became lifelong intimate friends. Trumbull's painting of Jefferson, commissioned by Cosway, became widely known due to a later engraving of it by Asher Brown Durand, which was reproduced.

Trumbull's Declaration of Independence painting was purchased by the United States Congress, along with his Surrender of General Burgoyne, Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, and General George Washington Resigning His Commission, all related to the Revolution. All now hang in rotunda of the United States Capitol. Congress reportedly authorized only funds sufficient to purchase these four paintings.

Trumbull completed several other paintings related to the Revolution:

Middle years

File:General George Washington at Trenton by John Trumbull.jpeg
General George Washington at Trenton, oil on canvas, 1792. Yale University Art Gallery.

Trumbull encountered hard times in which he was failing to sell his paintings individually; in 1831 he sold a series of 28 paintings and 60 miniature portraits to Yale University for an annuity of $1,000. After many years of trying to create income from his painting, he had finally found a way to sustain himself from his art.Template:Sfnp This is by far the largest single collection of his works. The collection was originally housed in a neoclassical art gallery designed by Trumbull on Yale's Old Campus, along with portraits by other artists.<ref>Template:Cite web Trumbull Gallery (1832)</ref>

His portraits also include full lengths of General Washington (1790) and George Clinton (1791), now held in New York City Hall.<ref name="EB1911"/> New York also bought his full-length paintings of Alexander Hamilton (1805, the source of the face on the $10 bill<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>) and John Jay. In 1791 Trumbull was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.<ref name=AAAS>Template:Cite web</ref>

He painted portraits of John Adams (1797), Jonathan Trumbull, and Rufus King (1800); Timothy Dwight and Stephen Van Rensselaer (both at Yale), Alexander Hamilton (one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and one in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, both taken from Ceracchi's bust), a self-portrait (1833), a full-length of Washington, held at Charleston, South Carolina; a full-length of Washington in uniform, General George Washington at Trenton, (1792, at Yale); and portraits of President and Mrs. Washington (1794), in the National Museum of American History.<ref name="EB1911"/>

Trumbull was painted by Gilbert Stuart and many others.

In 1794 Trumbull acted as secretary to John Jay in London during the negotiation of the treaty with Great Britain, which largely settled the boundary with Canada and began cotton export. In 1796 he was appointed by the commissioners sent by the two countries as the fifth member of a commission charged with carrying out the seventh article of the Jay Treaty,<ref name="EB1911"/> which mediated claims by American and British merchants and the opposing government stemming from actions which occurred during the war. Shortly after the end of Trumbull's service on this commission, he traveled to Stuttgart to pick up the completed engraving of the Battle of Bunker's Hill. On the return trip he passed through Paris and carried the first dispatch from the XYZ Affair out of France.Template:Sfnp

Later years

File:John Trumbull James Frothingham.jpg
John Trumbull, painted by James Frothingham

Trumbull was appointed president of the American Academy of the Fine Arts in New York City, serving for twenty years, from 1816 to 1836.Template:Sfnp Emphasizing classical traditions, Trumbull did not get along with the students. At the same time, his painting skills declined. In 1825 many of the students withdrew, founding the National Academy of Design.<ref></ref> Unable to accommodate to changing tastes, the American Academy later closed in 1839 after a second fire destroyed its collections.

Trumbull wrote his autobiography, which he published in 1841. He died in New York City at the age of 87 on November 10, 1843.

Legacy and honors

File:US $2 reverse.jpg
Reverse of U.S. two-dollar bill, featuring Trumbull's Declaration of Independence
File:John Trumbull-6c.jpg
Trumbull commemorative postage stamp, 1968

Paintings

Historic events

Portraits

  • Self Portrait John Trumbull 1777.jpeg

    Self-portrait, 1777

  • George Washington MET DT2823.jpg

    George Washington, 1780

  • Washington at Verplanck's Point by John Trumbull.jpg

    Washington at Verplanck's Point, 1790

  • General George Washington at Trenton by John Trumbull.jpeg

    General George Washington at Trenton, 1792

  • George Clinton by John Trumbull 1791.jpg

    George Clinton, 1791

  • John Trumbull, Lady in White.jpg

    Lady in White

  • Self Portrait by John Trumbull circa 1802.jpeg

    Self-portrait, Template:Circa

  • Sarah Trumbull with a Spaniel by John Trumbull.jpeg

    Mrs Sarah Trumbull with a spaniel 1802

  • Alexander Hamilton.jpg

    Alexander Hamilton, 1792

  • Hamilton Trumbull 1792.jpg

    Alexander Hamilton, 1792

  • Hamilton Trumbull - 1805.jpg

    Alexander Hamilton, 1805

  • Alexander Hamilton by John Trumbull 1832.jpeg

    Alexander Hamilton, 1832

Miniature portraits/sketches


===John Trumbull, American Painter, by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica"

John Trumbull, (born June 6, 1756, Lebanon, Connecticut, U.S.—died November 10, 1843, New York, New York), American painter, architect, and author, whose paintings of major episodes in the American Revolution form a unique record of that conflict’s events and participants.

Trumbull was the son of the Connecticut governor Jonathan Trumbull (a first cousin to the poet John Trumbull). A boyhood injury to his left eye made him virtually monocular. After graduating from Harvard College in 1773, he worked as a teacher. During the American Revolution he served as an aide to General George Washington and achieved the rank of colonel.

In 1780 Trumbull went to London via France, but, in reprisal for the hanging of the British agent Major John André by the Americans, he was imprisoned there. Once released, he returned home but subsequently went back to London by 1784 to study with the painter Benjamin West.

At the suggestion of West and with the encouragement of Thomas Jefferson, Trumbull about 1784 began the celebrated series of historical paintings and engravings that he was to work on sporadically for the remainder of his life. From 1789 he was in the United States, but he returned to London in 1794 as secretary to John Jay. He remained there for 10 years as a commissioner for the implementation of the Jay Treaty. During this period, in 1800, he married Sarah Hope Harvey, an English amateur painter. Moving back and forth between England and the United States, in 1808 he attempted portrait painting in London but met with little success. From 1815 to 1837 he maintained a rather unsuccessful studio in New York City.

In 1817 Trumbull was commissioned by the U.S. Congress to paint four large pictures in the Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington, D.C.: General George Washington Resigning His Commission, Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, Surrender of General Burgoyne, and, best known of all, Declaration of Independence. This series, which he completed in 1824, was based on the small and superior originals of these scenes that he had painted in the 1780s and ’90s. In 1831 Benjamin Silliman, a professor at Yale, established the Trumbull Gallery at Yale, the first art gallery at an educational institution in America. Trumbull gave his best works to this gallery in exchange for an annuity.

References

External links

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