Gilbert Stuart - Legacy

Legacy

By the end of his career, Gilbert Stuart had taken the likenesses of over one thousand American political and social figures. He was praised for the vitality and naturalness of his portraits, and his subjects found his company agreeable:

Speaking generally, no penance is like having one's picture done. You must sit in a constrained and unnatural position, which is a trial to the temper. But I should like to sit to Stuart from the first of January to the last of December, for he lets me do just what I please, and keeps me constantly amused by his conversation.

— John Adams

Stuart was known for working without the aid of sketches, beginning directly upon the canvas. This was very unusual for the time period. His approach is suggested by the advice he gave to his pupil Matthew Harris Jouett: "Never be sparing of colour, load your pictures, but keep your colours as separate as you can. No blending, tis destruction to clear & beatiful effect."

Stuart's works can be found today at art museums and private collections throughout the United States and Great Britain, including the University Club in New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

A life mask of Stuart was created by John Henri Isaac Browere around 1825.

In 1940 the U.S. Post Office issued a series of Postage stamps called the 'Famous Americans Series' commemorating famous Artists, Authors, Inventors, Scientists, Poets, Educators and Musicians. Along with the artists James McNeil Whistler, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Daniel Chester French and Frederic Remington, Gilbert Stuart is found on the 1 cent issue in the Artists category.

Today, Stuart's birthplace in Saunderstown, Rhode Island is open to the public as the Gilbert Stuart Birthplace and Museum. The museum consists of the original house Stuart was born in, with copies of paintings from throughout his career hanging throughout the house. The museum opened in 1930.