Stuart

Stuart, GILBERT CHARLES, American painter, was born at Narragansett, R.I., 3d December 1755. In his boyhood he went to Edinburgh with a Scotch painter named Alexander, with whom he studied his art; but his master dying, he worked his passage home, and began to paint portraits at Newport. In 1775 he made his way to London, where he led for two years a Bohemian life; but his talent was recognised by his countryman, Benjamin West, who took him into his family, and soon he became a fashionable portrait-painter. In 1792, in the fullness of his powers and fame, he returned to America, and painted portraits of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, John Adams, and many of the distinguished men of the period, and was at work on a portrait of John Quincy Adams (afterwards finished by Sully) when he died at Boston, 27th July 1828. See a Life by G. C. Mason (New York, 1879).