John Greenwood (artist)

John Greenwood (1727–1792) was an early American portrait painter and engraver.

Greenwood was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1727. He apprenticed with Thomas Johnston, a sign painter and engraver from 1742 to 1745 where he copied various English works. Besides portraits, Greenwood painted many satirical works. He left Boston in 1752 and traveled to the Dutch colony of Surinam in northeast South America. He stayed there for over five years, during which time he executed 115 portraits, before traveling again, this time to Europe, arriving in Amsterdam in May 1758. He settled there for a time to learn the art of making mezzotints, and was documented as a member of the Amsterdam Drawing Academy in 1758 by Jacob Otten Husly. After leaving Amsterdam, Greenwood stayed in Paris, then London, where he eventually settled in 1764.

One of Greenwood's best known works is Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam (1755), a drunken scene featuring various prominent Rhode Island merchants, including Declaration of Independence signatory Stephen Hopkins, Governor Joseph Wanton, Admiral Esek Hopkins, and Governor Nicholas Cooke.

Greenwood died while on a visit to Margate, Kent on the 16th of September, 1792, and is buried there.

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