Portrait of Elizabeth Gilpin

"Portrait of Elizabeth Gilpin" is an oil painting produced circa 1814 by Joshua Johnson (sometimes Johnston), a painter from Baltimore, Maryland who is generally thought to be the first professional Black artist in the United States.

There is sparse and conflicting evidence regarding Johnson's background, with some sources indicating he was born in 1763 as the son of George Johnson, a white man, and an enslaved Black woman whose name has not survived. He was sold as an infant to his father, who granted him his freedom upon completion of his apprenticeship to a blacksmith.

In a 1798 advertisement Johnson touted his skill and status as a self-taught painter. Art historians have noted similarities between his style and that of the prominent Peale family of artists, specifically Charles Peale Polk. It is thought that if he was not actually trained by an artist from that circle, that he was at least very familiar with their techniques. Many of his portraits are of members of families known to have supported the abolition of slavery.

The Birmingham painting is just over 24 inches tall and 20 inches wide. It portrays 10-year-old Elizabeth Gilpin, daughter of Joshua Gilpin, who was a prominent Quaker, inventor of the "endless papermaking machine," and co-founder of the first mechanized paper mill in the United States. Joshua Gilpin had married the former Mary Dilworth in 1800. Elizabeth was their third child. She went on to marry merchant Matthew Maury in 1841 and had at least two children. She died in New Jersey in 1892 and is buried in Brooklyn, New York. Her own attitude toward abolition is not known, but Quakers were often associated with abolitionist organizing and her older sister, Sarah, did become active in that cause in the 1860s.

The childhood portrait of Elizabeth was acquired by the Birmingham Museum of Art in 2024. Johnson's work was included in a 1988 temporary exhibition entitled "Sharing Traditions: Five Black Artists in 19th-Century America, exploring the lives and work of Johnson, Robert S. Duncanson, Edward Mitchell Bannister, Edmonia Lewis, and Henry Ossawa Tanner". Since then the museum has been seeking to purchase works by those artists to further its goal of exhibiting a more diverse and inclusive American art collection.

Though he enjoyed success during his lifetime, Johnson and his work fell into obscurity after his death. He did not usually sign or date his paintings, and little documentation has survived regarding his commissions. The works that have been attributed to him have been identified by style, subject and other secondary evidence. J. Hall Pleasants of the Maryland Historical Society published an article documenting what little was known of Johnson's career and attributing 13 works to him in 1939. When the Peale Museum mounted an exhibition in 1948, 25 portraits were included.

To date about 80 to 100 works from between 1795 and 1825 are thought to be his. Most of them are portraits of members of prominent Baltimore families. Only two depict African-American subjects. They are most often shown sitting stiffly in 3/4 view, often on upholstered chairs before relatively plain backgrounds.

References

• Weekley, Carolyn, Stiles Tuttle Colwill, et al. (1987) Joshua Johnson: Freeman and Early American Portrait Painter. Maryland Historical Society
• Perry, Regenia A. (1992) Free within Ourselves: African-American Artists in the Collection of the National Museum of American Art. National Museum of American Art / Pomegranate Art Books ISBN 9781566400725
• Bryan, Jennifer & Robert Torchia (1996) "The Mysterious Portraitist Joshua Johnson." Archives of American Art. Vol. 36, No. 2, p. 2-7
• Bookman, Alaina (March 11, 2024) "Birmingham museum acquires rare work by early American painter Joshua Johnson." AL.com

External links

• "Excerpt from Baltimore County Court chattel records, 1773-1784" at mdhistory.org
• "Joshua Johnson portrait painting advertisement" at mdhistory.org