author
Sir Joshua Reynolds
1723–1792
A towering figure in 18th-century British art, this painter helped turn portraiture into something grand, intelligent, and deeply fashionable. As the first president of the Royal Academy, he shaped not just how Britain painted, but how it thought about painting.
3 Audiobooks
Seven Discourses on Art
by Sir Joshua Reynolds
Fifteen discourses
by Sir Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds' Discourses Edited, with an Introduction, by Helen Zimmern
by Sir Joshua Reynolds
About the author
Born in Plympton, Devon, in 1723, Sir Joshua Reynolds became the leading portrait painter in Britain. After training with the London artist Thomas Hudson and traveling in Italy, he developed a style that blended close observation with the influence of classical art and the Old Masters.
Reynolds was especially admired for portraits that gave his sitters dignity, drama, and polish. He painted many of the best-known figures of his time and argued that artists should aim for a "Grand Style" that reached beyond simple likeness. His ideas were shared widely through the lectures he delivered at the Royal Academy.
In 1768 he became a founder and the first president of the Royal Academy, and he was knighted the following year. By the time of his death in 1792, he had become one of the defining figures of British art, remembered both for his portraits and for his lasting influence on artistic taste and education.