Joseph Blackburn (painter)

Joseph Blackburn (painter)

Joseph Blackburn, also known as Jonathan Blackburn, (dates of birth and death uncertain – see note below) was an English portrait painter who worked mainly in Bermuda and in colonial America. His notable works are Hugh Jones (circa 1777) and Colonel Theodore Atkinson (circa 1760).

He seems to have been the son of a painter, and to have had a studio in Boston in 1750-1765; among his patrons were many important early American families, including the Apthorps, Amorys, Bulfinches, Lowells, Ewings, Saltonstalls, Winthrops, Winslows and Oties of Boston.

Some of his portraits are in the possession of the public library of Lexington, Massachusetts, and of the Massachusetts Historical Society, but most of them are privately owned and are scattered over the country, the majority being in Boston. One portrait, of Elizabeth Browne Rogers completed in 1761, is part of the permanent American art collection at Reynolda House Museum of American Art located in Winston-Salem, NC. John Singleton Copley was his pupil, and it is said that he finally left his studio in Boston, through jealousy of Copley's superior success. His pictures were long attributed to Copley.