1755–1828

Gilbert Stuart

Gilbert Stuart was born in Rhode Island and trained in London under Benjamin West. He worked in London and Dublin before returning to the United States in 1793. He painted the first six U.S. presidents and hundreds of other sitters. His unfinished Athenaeum portrait of George Washington (1796) became the basis for the image on the one-dollar bill, and he made many replicas of it. He spent his last years in Boston, where he died in 1828.

Where to see Gilbert Stuart: Art Institute of Chicago (1 work); The Metropolitan Museum of Art (5 works); National Gallery of Art (10 works); National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian (4 works).

Public-domain works: Major-General Henry Dearborn, 1812; George Washington, begun 1795; Matilda Stoughton de Jaudenes, 1794; Captain John Gell, 1785; James Monroe, ca. 1820–22; The Skater (Portrait of William Grant), 1782; George Washington (Vaughan portrait), 1795; Abigail Smith Adams (Mrs. John Adams), 1800/1815; John Jay, 1794; John Adams, c. 1800/1815; Catherine Brass Yates (Mrs. Richard Yates), 1793/1794; Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1784; William Hull, c. 1823; Fisher Ames, c. 1807; Josef de Jaudenes y Nebot, 1794; James Madison, c. 1821; Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis (Mrs. Lawrence Lewis), 1804; Rufus King, 1819-20; Samuel Alleyne Otis, 1811/1813; George Washington (Lansdowne Portrait), 1796.