John Wollaston and the introduction of English Rococo portraiture to America

John Wollaston was a notable English painter. Known for his portraits, he was active between 1742 and 1775. For much of his career he resided and worked in the British colonies of North America and was one of a few painters to introduce to the American colonies, the English Rococo style. While little is known of his early life, he is believed to have been a son of a painter and born in London. His father's name may have been John Wollaston or John Woolston.

Similarly, little is known in regards to John's artistic training. In a letter written to Rembrandt in 1812, Charles Willson Peale mentions Wollaston's training with a painter of drapery in London. Aside from this mention, nothing else is known leading to many assuming he was self-taught or had acquired further undocumented training. Those that remark on his painting style share his work is similar to portraits painted by Allan Ramsey and Thomas Hudson.

A possible teacher of Wollaston was Joseph van Aken. One interesting feature of his paintings is the label on the back of some of his portraits that describe him as English instead of American 'Johannes Wollaston Londoniensis'. Executed in 1742, Wollaston's first documented work is a portrait of George Whitefield, a Methodist evangelist. Amazingly, the original is featured in one of the collections of National Portrait Gallery in London. Some other paintings that date back, prior to his voyage to the colonies can still be found. One of them is an anonymous portrait of a British Navy officer that has been placed in the National Gallery of Art.

When Wollaston made it to the British colonies, he settled in New York for several years, introducing the most fashionable and latest of London styles in portraiture to what became American patrons. Three years after his initial departure from London, he left New York and traveled to Philadelphia for a short time in 1752 before arriving in Annapolis a few months later in the spring of 1753. This was a prolific time for him in regards to his paintings. He painted an astounding 60 portraits of Marylanders and decided after that time to move to Virginia where also created a similar number of portraits from 1755 to 1757.

While his style began to seem outmoded, he was able to create beautiful work and eventually moved back to Philadelphia in 1758. The last recording of Wollaston being in Philadelphia was May 1759. Before arriving in Charleston in the fall of 1765, he most likely visited the West Indies. While in Charleston, Wollaston painted another series of portraits, at least seventeen, and then returned to London in 1767. He is not mentioned again until 1775 when by chance, he was stumbled upon in England by an acquaintance.