John Trumbull: A Founding Father of American Art

John Trumbull was born in Connecticut to Jonathan Trumbull, the governor of the state. Despite a boyhood accident that caused the loss of virtually all sight in his left eye, Trumbull devoted most of his life to drawing and painting, studying for a while under the most famous American painter of the day, Benjamin West.Trumbull was most successful with his historical paintings and engravings. In 1817, he was commissioned by Congress to paint four large pictures in the rotunda of the new Capitol Building in Washington. Very few Americans have not seen these works, which includea depiction of the signing of The Declaration of Independence.As impressive as these large works are, they somehow lack the impact of some Trumbull' s lesser known works, such as the portrait of the Indian chief Hypothle Mico and the drawing of John Mercer, General Hugh Mercer' son, which draw us to the subjects by capturing their personalities. The John Trumbull drawings, part of Fordham University Libraries, Charles Allen Munn Collection of Early Americana, are treasures that have only been exhibited at Fordham once, in 1943, the year they were acquired from Augusta Munn Tilney. She inherited them from her uncle, Charles Allen Munn, the founder of Scientific American magazine and a collector of Americana. In addition to the 38 Trumbull drawings, the collection includes 58 letters, diaries and other papers of Washington, Penn, Franklin, Revere, Lafayette and others of the Revolutionary period. Some of the drawings were exhibited at The Free Library of Jersey City in 1956 and at Yale University in 1982. John Trumbull: A Founding Father of American Art is the first reproduction of all of the drawings in one publication. The scholar who has produced the most important work on the drawings is Irma Jaffe, now professor emerita of art history at Fordham University. She is responsible for two distinguished books about Trumbull: John Trumbull, Patriot-Artist of the American Revolution and John Trumbull: The Declaration of Independence. She has also written 12 articles on Trumbull in various art journals.