William Matthew Prior

William Matthew Prior was one of the most successful and prolific of the many self-trained artists who worked in the first half of the nineteenth century painting portraits for ordinary Americans. Prior was born in Bath, Maine, the son of a ship captain. By the age of eighteen he was working as an itinerant artist, making portrait likenesses and doing decorative painting according to the varied demands of his provincial New England clientele. At some point, Prior may have worked with or apprenticed to Maine landscape painter Charles Codman (1800–1842), but he was largely self-taught. He distinguished himself by his ability to adapt his style to his clients’ varied expectations and levels of sophistication. In advertisements, Prior astutely offered a discount for “flat” pictures—portraits “without shade” or modeling.  He claimed to be able to complete such a portrait in less than one hour.

In the 1820s, Prior worked in the area around Bath and Portland, Maine. With his marriage to Rosamond Clark Hamblin (or Hamblen) in 1828, he joined a family of painters, and within three years he was working in partnership with his Hamblin in-laws, notably Sturtevant J. Hamblin. The Prior-Hamblin family settled in Boston in 1841. Although Prior based his career there, he traveled extensively in New England and as far south as Baltimore in search of commissions. In the 1840s, as photography encroached on the livelihood of many American portrait painters, Prior advertised the speed with which he could complete a portrait and also branched into other types of painting, notably historical, imaginary, topographical, and foreign landscapes.

Prior was particularly known for his portraits of children, whom he often portrayed in groups. Like many portrait painters of the time, he was sometimes called upon to paint the likeness of a deceased child, using a photograph or the corpse itself as his model. He also claimed to be able to paint posthumous portraits “by spirit effect,” according to his spiritualist beliefs. Prior was an admirer of American portraitist Gilbert Stuart (1755–1828), after whom he named one of his sons. Under Stuart’s influence he painted a number of portraits that demonstrate his ability to apply sophisticated conventions and to convincingly model three-dimensional forms. He maintained his “flat” style, however, for the many clients whose tastes and means demanded a simpler approach and faster execution. In these so-called naïve portraits, on which Prior’s reputation with modern collectors rests, the plainness and uniformity of his likenesses are often relieved by lively patterns and bold colors.