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George Washington

Gilbert Stuart

American, 1755–1828

George Washington

1796–1803

George Washington’s image first became popular in America around 1775, the year he was named commander in chief of the Continental army. Formal yet direct, this portrait is among many variants that Stuart based on his famous, unfinished study of President Washington done from life in 1796. Stuart’s portraits quickly became the iconic representation of Washington as statesman and founding father of the new republic, guaranteeing the artist a long and lucrative career.

Medium oil on canvas
Dimensions 28 15/16 × 24 1/16 in. (73.5 × 61.1 cm) Frame: 35 7/8 × 30 5/8 × 3 1/4 in. (91.1 × 77.8 × 8.3 cm)
Object Number 1955.16
Acquisition Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status On View

Image Caption

Gilbert Stuart, George Washington, 1796–1803, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.16

Select Bibliography

Jolly, Penny Howell. Hair: Untangling a Social History. The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, January 31 - June 6, 2004. The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College. 2004:plate 34. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Four: First Two Rooms. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Four & Exhibit Seven. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1958. Williams College Museum of Art.. George Washington. Sept. 5-Nov. 29, 1992. No cat.. 1992.. Koja, Stephan, ed. America: The New World in 19th-Century Painting. Exhibition catalogue. Munich: Prestel, 1999. John Hill Morgan and Mantle Fielding.. The Life Portraits of George Washington and Their Replicas.. Philadelphia: Privately printed.. 1931.. Gustavus Eisen.. Portraits of Washington.. New York: Robert Hamilton and Assoc.. 1912.. Charles Merrill Mount.. Gilbert Stuart.. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.. 1964.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. Faison, S. Lane, Jr. "Painter of Washington: Gilbert Stuart's $100 Bills." Berkshire Eagle, 22 February 1975. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. Conrads, Margaret C. American Paintings and Sculpture at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1990. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Richard Wendorf.. Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Painter in Society.. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press.. 1996.. Mantle Fielding.. Gilbert Stuart's Portraits of Washington.. Philadelphia: Wickersham Printing Co.. 1923.. Barratt, Carrie Rebora and Ellen G. Miles. Gilbert Stuart.  Exhibition catalogue. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Conforti, Michael, et al. The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven: distributed by Yale University Press, 2006. Davidson, Susan ed. America Today: 300 Years of Art from the U.S.A.. National Art Museum of China, Beijing, February 10- April 5, 2007; Shanghai Museum, April 30- June 30, 2007; Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, July 23- September 9, 2007; Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, October 10, 2007- January 13, 2008. London; New York: Merrell; New York: Guggenheim Museum; Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art. 2007. Brookhiser, Richard. Washington in His Own Words: Special Collector's Edition from the Editors of American History Magazine (2010). Wood, B. Dan. The Myth of Presidential Representation. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Ganz, James A. and Richard R. Brettell. Great French Paintings from the Clark: Barbizon through Impressionism. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Skira Rizzoli Publications; Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2011.

Provenance

William Willing by 1845; to (Lewis Rogers, agent, New York, 1845); to R.L. Paterson, 1845; to Charles Paterson, by descent; to (Hermann Schaus?); to Mrs. Elizabeth S. Clark, c. 1905; to Stephen C. Clark, by descent, 1909; to Robert Sterling Clark by April 1911.

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