Sarah Goodridge

Self-portrait, 1830

Sarah Goodridge (* 5. February 1788 in Templeton , Massachusetts ; † 28. December 1853 in Reading , Massachusetts) was an American artist who mainly Portrait - miniatures specialized.

Life

Goodridge was born the sixth child and third daughter of Ebenezer Goodridge and his wife Beulah Childs. She began to draw at an early age, but since the training opportunities for women were limited at the time, she was largely self-taught . She went to boarding school for a few months while visiting her brother, William M. Goodrich, in Milton , and took drawing lessons in Boston , where she accompanied her brother. In Boston she also met the painter Gilbert Stuart , who was interested in her work. From 1820 she lived with her sister Elizabeth (1798–1882), who was also a portrait painter, in Boston, where she created portrait miniatures of exceptional quality. She now earned enough to earn a living and to support her family. After her eyesight deteriorated from 1851, she retired from painting and settled in Reading.

plant

Goodridge mostly painted her portraits on ivory , a painting surface popular in miniature painting because of its smoothness, which allows particular precision in the application of paint and increases the luminosity of the color. Her paintings have been exhibited in Boston and Washington, DC . Her portraits of the politician Daniel Webster and the painter colleague Gilbert Stuart are well known. Today she is best known for the “portrait” of her bare breasts, Beauty Revealed .

literature

• Fine, Elsa Honig: Women & Art. A History of Women Painters and Sculptors from the Renaissance to the 20th Century. Montclair, NJ, 1978. ISBN 0-8390-0212-2
• McHenry, Robert: Famous American Women: A Biographical Dictionary from Colonial Times to the Present. Mineola, NY, 1983. ISBN 0-486-24523-3

Web links

Commons : Sarah Goodridge  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files