Benjamin West

 Benjamin West Benjamin West, the first globally respected artist to emerge from the New World, did not let the British colonists' lack of a solid artistic heritage deter him. Early in his career, West, self-taught, became well-known as a portrait artist in Philadelphia and New York. Later, he traveled to Europe, where he engaged in the works of the Italian Old Masters and Greek and Roman art. There, he joined the nascent Neoclassical movement and created a series of massive history paintings that became extremely popular with the general public. West was highly impactful for a new generation of American...
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