age ~80
from Aiken, SC
…Sir William Chambers used his connections with King George III to gain royal patronage and financial support of the Academy and the painter Sir Joshua Reynolds was made its first President. Francis Milner Newton was elected the first secretary, a post he held until his resignation in 1788.&h...
…Partly under the influence of Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, whom he studied during a three-years stay in England, he applied his methods to a brilliant series of portraits, especially of women. Notable among these are the Portrait de Thtre (Madame Rjane), and Mme. Roger Jourdain. ...
…Also around this time (circa 1808) Blake gave vigorous expression of views on art in an extensive series of polemical annotations to the Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds, denouncing the British Academy as a fraud and proclaiming, "To Generalize is to be an Idiot."[44]…
Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA (16 July 1723 23 February 1792) was an influential 18th-century English painter, specialising in portraits and promoting ...