Otis, Bass

Otis, Bass

(1784–1861) painter, lithographer; born in Bridgewater, Mass. He began as a scythemaker, became a portrait painter in New York City (1808), and from 1812, lived in Philadelphia. Considered the first American lithographer, he published a portrait of Reverend Abner Kneeland in a volume of lectures (1818). He also painted portraits of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.