John Singleton Copley was an Anglo-American painter, active in both colonial America and England. He was suspected to be born in Boston, Province of Massachusetts Bay, to Richard and Mary Singleton Copley, both Anglo-Irish. After becoming well-established as a portrait painter of the wealthy in colonial New England, he moved to London in 1774, never returning to America. In London, he met considerable success as a portraitist for the next two decades, and also painted a number of large history paintings, which were innovative in their readiness to depict modern subjects and modern dress. His later years were less successful, and he died heavily in debt. He was father of John Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst.
Self-Portrait, c. 1769, Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library, Delaware
Portrait of Ann Fairchild Bowler (1758)
Portrait of the Copley family (1776)
Mars, Venus and Vulcan (1754) (Kalamazoo Institute of Arts)
Mary Singleton Copley Pelham
Mary Singleton Copley Pelham was an Irish-American colonial settler. Her son was the artist John Singleton Copley. She operated a tobacco retail and wholesale business and taught education, art, and manners classes. By 1751, she had been widowed twice. Her sons, John Singleton Copley and Henry Pelham were accomplished artists. She was step-mother to her second husband, Peter Pelham's five children.
John Singleton Copley, A Boy with a Flying Squirrel (Henry Pelham) (1765)
John Singleton Copley, Portrait of the Copley family (1776)
Boston in 1768, with Long Wharf extending into the harbor, engraving by Paul Revere