Benjamin West
1738–1820 · United States, Kingdom of Great Britain · Neoclassicism
The story
Benjamin West grew up in colonial Pennsylvania and never lost his American accent, yet he spent his adult life as history painter to George III and, for nearly 30 years, president of the Royal Academy in London.
His break came in 1770 with The Death of General Wolfe, showing the British commander dying at the moment of victory over the French at Quebec in 1759. West dressed his figures in the actual uniforms of the battle rather than the Greek and Roman robes that convention demanded for a noble scene. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the Academy's first president, warned him the modern coats would ruin the picture. It became one of the most reproduced images of the century and changed how heroic events were painted.
West's London studio became a way station for young American artists. Gilbert Stuart, John Trumbull and Charles Willson Peale all passed through it, so that much of the first generation of United States painting traces back to a man who left home and stayed away. He was buried in St Paul's Cathedral in 1820.
