Great Masters

West, Benjamin
The Death of General Wolfe, 1770
Oil on canvas, 152.6 x 214.5 cm)
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

West was born in Springfield, Pennsylvania and after his mother died in 1756 he established himself as a portrait painter in Philadelphia and in New York.

Much successful he then went to Rome in 1760 and visited Florence, Bologna and Venice. He came to London in 1763 and received such a warm welcome there that he decided not to return to the U.S.

West held a preponderent role among English painters and was chosen in 1765 as the head of the Incorporated Society before becoming a co-founder of the Royal Academy three years later.

As a member of the Quaker religious group, he refused to be raised to the peerage after becoming president of the Royal Academy in 1792.

West, who was long forgotten after his death, was however considered as a major painter during his lifetime. The fact that he remained president of the Royal Academy during thirty years proves that he was regarded as a prominent artist.

In 1769, King George III asked him to paint the departure of Regulus with numerous figures and though his technique was not remarkable he managed to gather thsewith much talent ? In The Death of Wolfe, a painting produced in 1771, he showed figures wearing modern clothes, an initiative which was quiute audacious regarding historical paintings, which he produced in numerous quantities. At the end of his life he painted some religious scenes, notably in a style heralding Romanticism.

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