(1801-1889)
Born near Jonesboro in 1802; died at Nashville in 1889. He was unschooled in art up to the age of 26, but he was said to have been always painting faces on barn doors, fences and anything else with a smooth surface. After receiving instruction for two years from an unknown artist in Murfreesboro–possibly Ralph E. W. Earl–he moved to Nashville and opened a studio. One year later he had earned enough to go to Philadelphia for study with Thomas Sully and Henry Inman.
On his return to Nashville he became the most prolific painter of portraits in the city’s history and, so far as is known, never painted anything else. Still in the possession of his descendants is an account book he kept from 1838 to 1846 which shows that he averaged about 35 portraits a year at this time. He seldom received more than $75 for a commission, and more than one sitter refused to pay him at all. They are listed in the account book as “dead horses.”
He painted every Tennessee governor through Robert Love Taylor, with the exception of William Blount, and all the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, up to his time.
