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Joseph Whiting Stock
1815–1855
BirthplaceSpringfield, Massachusetts, United States of America
Death placeSpringfield, Massachusetts, United States of America
BiographyThe prolific Joseph Whiting Stock painted portraits, anatomical illustrations, miniatures, landscapes, and genre scenes, or images of everyday life, in the somewhat flat, stiff style associated with so-called folk art, which had its heyday in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century. Stock was one of twelve children born to a modest family in Springfield, Massachusetts. At the age of eleven, he was permanently paralyzed from the waist down by an accident, and he took up painting in the hope of one day supporting himself as a maker of portraits. He received a few lessons in painting from Franklin White (dates unknown), a pupil of the celebrated portraitist Chester Harding (1792–1866), but was otherwise self-taught. Stock was already receiving portrait commissions from local residents when his new doctor devised a wheelchair that gave him considerable mobility and independence.
In 1836, Stock began his almost two-decades-long career as an itinerant painter, traveling to the towns around Springfield on the border of Massachusetts and Connecticut. In addition to working on many local commissions for portraits, he also made paintings of famous people and other scenes based on reproductive prints. Stock's health received another setback in early 1839 when he was severely burned in a fire that began as he was preparing varnish; battles with typhoid fever and a hip infection and surgery followed. Remarkably, the artist recovered, and in 1842 he traveled throughout coastal Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In the early 1840s, Stock briefly worked with his brother-in-law Otis H. Cooley (1820–60), a daguerreotype maker.
In 1852 Stock moved to Orange County in southern New York State. There, he expanded his practice to include making book illustrations; copying daguerreotypes; and selling frames, art supplies, and decorative objects. He went into partnership with local resident Salmon W. Corwin (1829–55), whom he taught to paint, and together they drew and published a hand-colored view of the town of Port Jervis, New York. Stock's flourishing career was cut short by tuberculosis, and he died in Springfield at the age of forty. He left an account of his life and career that details his patronage and the creation and prices of more than nine-hundred works he completed between 1832 and 1846. As a result, Stock remains perhaps the best-documented of the many American nineteenth-century itinerant painters—and one of the most prolific, with an estimated total output of more than one thousand paintings.
In 1836, Stock began his almost two-decades-long career as an itinerant painter, traveling to the towns around Springfield on the border of Massachusetts and Connecticut. In addition to working on many local commissions for portraits, he also made paintings of famous people and other scenes based on reproductive prints. Stock's health received another setback in early 1839 when he was severely burned in a fire that began as he was preparing varnish; battles with typhoid fever and a hip infection and surgery followed. Remarkably, the artist recovered, and in 1842 he traveled throughout coastal Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In the early 1840s, Stock briefly worked with his brother-in-law Otis H. Cooley (1820–60), a daguerreotype maker.
In 1852 Stock moved to Orange County in southern New York State. There, he expanded his practice to include making book illustrations; copying daguerreotypes; and selling frames, art supplies, and decorative objects. He went into partnership with local resident Salmon W. Corwin (1829–55), whom he taught to paint, and together they drew and published a hand-colored view of the town of Port Jervis, New York. Stock's flourishing career was cut short by tuberculosis, and he died in Springfield at the age of forty. He left an account of his life and career that details his patronage and the creation and prices of more than nine-hundred works he completed between 1832 and 1846. As a result, Stock remains perhaps the best-documented of the many American nineteenth-century itinerant painters—and one of the most prolific, with an estimated total output of more than one thousand paintings.