Ammi Phillips (1788-1865)
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Ammi Phillips was an early American folk art painter born in Colebrook, Connecticut. Phillips was a self-taught artist, and learned how to paint from studying imported prints. He was also known as the Border Limner and the Kent Limner and worked in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York.
Phillips was an itinerant portrait painter and today there are 500 known works of his catalogued in public and private collections. Though he was a self-taught artist, it is generally thought by art historians that Phillips studied the works of other painters of the day to create his own fluid style. Very few details of Phillips life are known today, leaving holes in his history and the possibility for his work to surface almost anywhere.
His earliest paintings are somewhat awkward, as is the case with any new self-taught artist. These early period paintings, all dated in 1811 led way to other transitional pieces that showed his gaining talent for using light and recreating fabrics on canvas. He used a fairly luminous and bright palette, but also used a relatively uniform style for posing and costuming his sitters. Throughout his career, it is evident that he grew in leaps and bounds as an artist and his skill as a painter only grew over the years.
Despite the fact that he was a self-taught artist, Phillips became renowned for his brilliant compositions and was considered a master in color and design. It is this use of color that connects Phillips to the folk art movement, as bright hues were usually downplayed by traditional portrait painters of the day. Like other folk artists, Phillips paintings were also highly detailed as well, but obviously naïve and not photo realistic, no matter how beautifully executed. One only has to look at the hands of his sitters to realize that Phillips was indeed a self-taught artist.
Though he moved his family quite often, Phillips would attempt to become a part of his community in each new city. He socialized and became friends with the prominent people of each town he lived in to gain patrons and commissions, instead of spending money on advertising. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Phillips did not generally paint portraits of notable Americans, but more of notable locals in the towns in which he lived.
Today, Phillips’ paintings are housed in public and private collections all over New England, including at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and The Art Institute of Chicago. Still wondering about an early American folk-art portrait hanging in your family’s estate? Contact us…it could be by Ammi Phillips.