William Johnston (painter)

Portrait of Mrs. Thomas Mumford VI, c. 1763, oil on canvas, in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum of Art

William Johnston (1732 – April, 1772) was a colonial American painter. He was the first painter to spend any significant amount of time in Connecticut, and was active in Portsmouth, New Hampshire as well.^[1]

Johnston was born in Boston, Massachusetts, one of the four sons of the japanner Thomas Johnston and his wife, Rachel Thwing.^[1] His brother John became a painter as well.^[2] John Smibert and Peter Pelham were among the family's neighbors, and William was a friend of John Singleton Copley, who was six years his junior; he likely also knew the latter's half-brother, Henry Pelham.^[2] He began his career as a musician, serving as organist at Boston's Christ Church from 1750 to 1753, before he decided to become a painter.^[1] This career, too, he began in Boston, but for many years no works from his early career were known until a pair of portraits in the Metropolitan Museum of Art were identified as his. ^[2] He traveled next to Portsmouth, New Hampshire for work, living there from 1759 until 1762. Next he moved to Connecticut, remaining in the colony for at least three years; during his sojourn there he worked in New London, New Haven, and the area around Hartford.^[1] He was the first painter to work there – residents previously having to travel to Boston, Newport, or New York City to be painted – and may have been lured there by his sister, Susan Hobby, who lived in Middletown.^[1] He counted a number of members of the most prominent families in Connecticut, including the Mumfords, among his patrons.^[3]

Johnston returned to Boston sometime before 1766.^[1] On December 2 of that year he married Christy Bruce, widow of Samuel Bruce, becoming stepfather to her two children.^[2] He had moved to Barbados by 1770, continuing to find work as a portraitist and receiving seventy-five pounds a year to play the organ;^[1] a letter from that year to Copley makes no mention of his wife or stepchildren, suggesting that they had by this point died.^[2] The letter also requests a portrait of his sister, Mrs. Hobby, from Copley.^[1] Johnston himself died in Bridgetown relatively soon thereafter, in April, 1772, apparently of a sudden illness.^[2] Interment was in the parish church of St. Michael. Johnston left a will in which his possessions were bequeathed to Rachel Beckles, sister of Barbados attorney general Henry Beckles. His death was noted in the Boston press.^[1]

Stylistically, Johnston's work is very similar to that of his friend Copley, adopting similar poses and many of the stylistic characteristics of his early work; indeed, at least three of Johnston's portraits have been misidentified as those of the younger artist in past years.^[2] His paintings also suggest the influence of Joseph Blackburn, who was painting in Portsmouth at the same time he was there, although his style is more linear.^[1] He was generally comfortable working in a three-quarter length format; his greatest difficulty lay in attaching the sitter's head to the body.^[1] Many of his poses and backgrounds are drawn from English mezzotints of the period.^[3] Today two of Johston's paintings may be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,^[2] while one is owned by the Connecticut Historical Society,^[1] and another is owned by the Brooklyn Museum of Art.^[3]

References

1. Richard H. Saunders; Ellen Gross Miles; National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian Institution) (1987). American colonial portraits, 1700–1776. Published by the Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Portrait Gallery. ISBN 978-0-87474-695-2.
2. John Caldwell; Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque; Dale T. Johnson (1 March 1994). American Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 1: A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born by 1815. Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 51–. GGKEY:5A107H6P5DU.
3. "Brooklyn Museum: American Art: Mrs. Thomas Mumford VI". brooklynmuseum.org. Retrieved 10 May 2015.