1688

Edinburgh, Scotland

March 1751

First portrait painter in colonial America

Portrait: John Smibert. Reproduced by permission of The Library of Congress.

"Thy Fame, O Smibert, shall the Muse rehearse,/And sing her Sister-Art [painting] in softer Verse."

American poet Mather Byles.

John Smibert (also Smybert) was the first portrait painter to come to America. After settling in Boston (then located in the Massachusetts Colony), he exerted a profound influence on eighteenth-century American art. Smibert's training in the fashionable Dutch-influenced style of portraiture (the making of portraits) brought a new sophistication to painting in New England. Most of the leading citizens of Boston were his clients. Smibert is credited with organizing the first art show in America. He also influenced a number of young American artists.

Apprenticed as House Painter

John Smibert was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1688, where he was raised as a Presbyterian (a Protestant denomination...