West, Benjamin

(1738–1820) painter, teacher; born in Springfield, Pa. He painted portraits in Philadelphia (1756), traveled to Rome (1759–62), where he was influenced by the classical German painter Anton Mengs, then settled in London (1763). There he became a charter member of the Royal Academy (1768; president in 1792), and was appointed historical painter to George III (1772). Death of Wolfe (1771), his depiction of Gen. James Wolfe in the siege of Quebec during the French and Indian Wars, brought him fame. Throughout his long career in London he promoted and taught visiting American artists, such as Matthew Pratt, Charles W. Peale, Gilbert Stuart, S. F. B. Morse, Washington Allston and Thomas Sully. Later West's historical subjects waned in popularity, but his allegorical Death on a Pale Horse (1802) influenced the emerging French school of romantic painting.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

West, Benjamin

Born Oct. 10, 1738, in Springfield, Pa.; died Mar. 11, 1820, in London. American painter.

West first worked in Philadelphia and New York as a water-color painter, graphic artist, and portrait painter. From 1760 to 1763 he traveled in Italy. After 1763 he worked permanently in London; in 1792 he became president of the Royal Academy of Arts. West’s portraits, especially his early ones, often combine traditional stylization with realism. His thematic compositions are academic in spirit, but a number of his historical paintings, for example, Penn’s Treaty with the Indians (1772, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia), are marked by a historically accurate rendering of costume and setting.

REFERENCE

Evans, G. Benjamin West and the Taste of His Times. Carbondale, 1959.