John Brewster, Jr.
| John Brewster, Jr. | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 1766 Hampton, Connecticut |
| Died |
August 13, 1854 Buxton, Maine |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Painting |
John Brewster Jr. (May 30 or May 31, 1766 – August 13, 1854) was a prolific, deaf itinerant painter who produced many charming portraits of well-off New England families, especially their children. He lived much of the latter half of his life in Buxton, Maine, USA, recording the faces of much of Maine's elite society of his time.
According to the website of the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York, "Brewster was not an artist who incidentally was Deaf but rather a Deaf artist, one in a long tradition that owes many of its features and achievements to the fact that Deaf people are, as scholars have noted, visual people."
Little is known about Brewster's childhood or youth. He was the third child born in Hampton, Connecticut, to Dr. John and Mary (Durkee) Brewster. His mother died when he was 17. His father remarried Ruth Avery of Brooklyn, Connecticut, and they went on to have four more children.
John Brewster Sr., a doctor and descendant of William Brewster (pilgrim), the Pilgrim leader, was a member of the Connecticut General Assembly and also active in the local church.
One of the younger Brewster's "more touching and polished full-length portraits" is of his father and stepmother, according to Ben Genocchio, who wrote a review of an exhibition of Brewster's portraits in the New York Times. They are shown at home in conventional poses and wearing refined but not opulent dress in a modestly furnished room. His mother sits behind her husband, reading while he is writing. "She stares directly at the viewer, though softly, even submissively, while her husband stares off into the distance as if locked in some deep thought."
As a deaf from birth, and growing up in a time when no standardized sign language for the deaf existed, the young Brewster probably interacted with few people outside of the circle of his family and friends, with whom he would have learned to communicate. A kindly minister taught him to paint, and by the 1790s he was traveling through Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and eastern New York State, taking advantage of his family connections to offer his services to the wealthy merchant class.
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Wikipedia