biography of John TRUMBULL (1756-1843)

Birth place: Lebanon, CT

Death place: NYC

Addresses: NYC

Profession: Historical, portrait, miniature, religious, and landscape painter, amateur architect, cartographer

Studied: Harvard Univ. 1773; advice from J.S. Copley in Boston, 1773; Benjamin West in London, 1780s

Exhibited: Am. Acad FA; Brooklyn AA, 1872 (group of portraits)

Member: Am. Acad FA (pres., 1817-35)

Work: Yale Univ. Art Gallery, New Haven CT (largest collection); Harvard Univ.; NGA; NYHS; U.S. Capitol bldg., Wash., DC; Wadsworth Atheneum (view of Niagara Falls)

Comments: One of the great painters of the early Republic, he is best remembered for his life"s quest to document the leaders of the Revolutionary War and its events. His "Declaration of Independence" (1799, Yale Univ.) is perhaps his most universally-recognized image. He was the son of Jonathan Trumbull, the Revolutionary Governor of Connecticut. Although a childhood accident had blinded him in one eye, Trumbull was determined to become an artist and in 1773 sought out John Singleton Copley for advice and criticism. He served as an officer in the Continental Army from 1775, resigning his post in 1777 after a disagreement over the date of his commission. Trumbull then studied briefly in Boston and in 1780 went to London, entering Benjamin West's studio and meeting Gilbert Stuart. Soon thereafter, however, anti-British statements made by Trumbull put him in prison for almost eight months under suspicion of being a spy. In 1784, he returned to West's London studio where he remained until 1789, also visiting Paris in those years. In 1785 he began work on what would be the focus of his entire career, a series of paintings marking important events in the Revolution, beginning with Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker's Hill" (1786, Yale Univ.) and "The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec" (1786, Yale Univ.). Trumbull returned to the U.S. in 1789 and began making portrait studies of important individual participants in the War, and producing engravings of his historical pictures. He also fulfilled portrait and miniature commissions, traveling throughout the country. In 1794, he returned to London as secretary to John Jay, remaining there until 1804 as a commissioner under the Jay Treaty. In 1799 he finally completed his famous Declaration of Independence (Yale) after years of carefully recording in miniature, in preparation for the final work, portraits of thirty-six of the major participants. Trumbull opened a studio in NYC in 1804, but in 1808 returned once again to London, remaining this time until 1816. Shortly after resettling in NYC, Trumbull began work on fulfilling a prestigious commission by the U.S. Congress to decorate the Capitol rotunda with four historical murals: "The Declaration of Independence" (based on his previous painting); "The Surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga;" "The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown;" and "The Resignation of General Washington at Annapolis." Over the next several years Trumbull devoted much of his time to painting the portrait heads for the works, finally completing the entire cycle in 1824. From 1817 to 1834 Trumbull served as president of the American Academy of Fine Arts (founded in NYC in 1802 and originally called the New York Acad. of the Fine Arts). Trumbull's adversarial and strident attitude, which sometimes kept artists and students from using the collection for study, eventually led to a bitter struggle with Samuel F.B. Morse and others, resulting in the founding of the rival National Academy of Design in 1825 (the American Academy eventually dissolved in 1841). In 1831, Trumbull sold his life"s collection to Yale University for an annuity, and this formed the nucleus of the Yale University Art Gallery. Trumbull's wife, Sarah Hope Harvey was also an artist.

Sources: G&W; In 1841, Trumbull's Autobiography was published, and in 1953 it was edited and supplemented by Theodore Sizer, who also edited an illustrated catalogue, The Works of Colonel John Trumbull. See also: Irma Jaffe, John Trumbull, Patriot Artist of the American Revolution (1975); Helen Cooper, ed. John Trumbull: The Hand and Spirit of a Painter (exh. cat., Yale Univ., 1982); Baigell, Dictionary; 300 Years of American Art, vol. 1, 66"