Lawrence Sully

สถานที่: Horncastle

เกิด: 1783

ความตาย: 1804

ชีวประวัติ:

Lawrence Sully was born in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England on June 19, 1783, to the actors Matthew and Sarah Sully. In March 1792 the Sullys and their nine children emigrated to Charleston, S.C. Sully made his first appearance in the theater as a tumbler at the age of 11 in Charleston. After a brief apprenticeship to an insurance broker, he began painting. He studied with his brother-in-law Jean Belzons (active 1794–1812), a French miniaturist, until they had a falling-out in 1799. Between 1801 and 1802, Sully lived in Norfolk, Virginia, the city from which his aunt Margaretta Sully West ran her theater and opera company. Sully became a professional painter at age 18 in 1801, while living in Norfolk, Virginia, with his brother Lawrence. By 1802, he and elder brother Lawrence Sully (1769–1804) changed their base to Richmond, Virginia, where they continued to work together. In 1805, Thomas Sully married his brother's widow, Sarah (Annis) Sully. He took on the rearing of Lawrence's children. Sully moved to New York in 1806. The next year, he studied portrait painting under Gilbert Stuart in Boston for three weeks. By 1808, he had settled in Philadelphia, where he resided for the remainder of his life. In 1809 Sully traveled to London for nine months of study under the American Benjamin West, who had established his painting career in Great Britain. Sully's 1824 portraits of John Quincy Adams, who became President within the year, and the general Marquis de Lafayette, appear to have brought him widespread recognition. His Adams portrait is held in the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Many notable Americans of the day had their portraits painted by him. In 1837–1838, he was in London to paint Queen Victoria at the request of Philadelphia's St. George's Society. His daughter Blanche assisted him as the Queen's 'stand-in,' modeling the Queen's costume when she was not available. One of Sully's portraits of Thomas Jefferson is owned by the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society at the University of Virginia and hangs in that school's rotunda. Another Jefferson portrait, this one head-to-toe, hangs at West Point, as does his portrait of General Alexander Macomb.