Daniel Gardner
| Daniel Gardner | |
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Self-portrait in oil (around 1780). Given by Daniel Gardner's great-great-granddaughter, Miss Frances Baker, to the National Portrait Gallery, London in 1923.
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| Born |
Daniel Gardner 1750 Kendal, Westmorland, England |
| Died | 8 July 1805 London, England |
| Nationality | English |
| Known for | Portraitist |
Daniel Gardner (1750 – 8 July 1805) was a British painter, best known for his work as a portraitist. He established a fashionable studio in Bond Street in London, specializing in small scale portraits in pastel, crayons or gouache, often borrowing Reynolds' poses.
By some critics Gardner is regarded as a notable artist who, however, was not an accurate draughtsman if it came to figure work especially to facial construction in some of his pastels. For others, on the other hand, it is this special looseness or facile elegance which represents the uniqueness of Gardner's style, and in which they see an anticipation of impressionism.
Daniel Gardner was a pupil of George Romney. However, Gardner used to say that he learned very little from him. At around 1767 Gardner moved to London where in 1770 he became a student at the Royal Academy of Arts. There he was taught by Johann Zoffany, Nathaniel Dance-Holland, Benjamin West, Giovanni Battista Cipriani and Francesco Bartolozzi. In 1771 Gardner won a silver medal at the Royal Academy of Arts for the portrait of an old man. The portrait was styled as a drawing in the Royal Academy Catalogue and therefore it very possibly was a work in pastel. It is said in a letter by Daniel Gardner's grandson, George Harrison Gardner, dated in 1856, that the subject of this portrait was The Chained Captive. Apart from this picture no further works by Gardner were shown at the major London exhibitions. At that time Gardner was residing at 11, Cockspur Street, Pall Mall, London. Later in his life he had resided at two different addresses in New Bond Street, London, no. 120 and no. 142, removing to the latter in 1781, but in 1793 he transferred his residence to lodgings at 3, Beak Street, Golden Square, London.
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