Process and Paradox: The Historical Pictures of John Singleton Copley

Boston artist John Singleton Copley (1738–1815) is best known in the United States for his colonial portraits, executed before he left for England in 1774. While Harvard University is a noted repository of those portraits, the Fogg Art Museum also has a rich trove of preparatory works for several of the most important history paintings that Copley made in England during the second half of his career. The first of these large-scale works, The Death of the Earl of Chatham (1779–81), depicted a recent political crisis, and a later painting, The Siege of Gibraltar (1783–91), celebrated a military victory.

With these works Copley attempted to circumvent private and royal patronage, appealing to a broader audience through such innovative strategies as presenting one-picture exhibitions for an admission fee and encouraging visitors to subscribe for an engraving of the painting on view. However, he was a notoriously slow and methodical worker, and public attention to the latest news sensation could not be sustained over the years needed to execute his pictures. Copley’s work was further complicated by his fierce dedication to accuracy, as he struggled to depict the facts while creating a successful composition.

In later years Copley turned from recent events to themes from centuries past, which sometimes had a distinct antiroyalist flavor. This exhibition of over 20 works is occasioned by the recent treatment of two such paintings by the Straus Center for Conservation: the Boston Public Library’s rarely seen Charles I Demanding the Five Impeached Members of the House of Commons (1782–95), and the Fogg’s unfinished Monmouth Before James II Refusing to Give the Names of His Accomplices (c. 1795), which has not been on view for several decades. Bringing the Library’s monumental work together with the Fogg’s pictures gave curators and conservators the opportunity to study Copley’s painting practice. Their findings to date on Charles I and Monmouth provide clues to his creative process and illuminate the paradoxes inherent in both his history paintings and his political loyalties. When Copley went to England he accommodated his style to that of his peers, but his careful, deliberate technique and his choice of controversial subjects show traces of a lingering American sensibility.

Organized by Kimberly Orcutt, assistant curator of American art.