Joseph Badger

Joseph Badger was born on March 14, 1707/8, in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the son of Stephen Badger, a tailor, and Mercy Kettell. He began his working life as a house painter and glazier, marrying Katharine Felch in 1731 and relocating to Boston around 1733. He turned to portraiture about 1740, evidently self-trained and drawing inspiration from English mezzotints and the work of Scottish-born painter John Smibert, whose Boston studio was nearby.

After Smibert retired in 1746, Badger rose to become one of the city's leading portraitists, producing straightforward likenesses of merchants, clergy, and children. His style is marked by a linear flatness and stiff figure treatment, yet his use of color and directness of observation lend his subjects an honest immediacy. Among his documented sitters were Boston merchant Cornelius Waldo, Dr. William Foster, and Mrs. John Haskins.

Badger also painted his three-year-old grandson James in 1760, a work now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He remained active until the 1760s, when the more sophisticated style of John Singleton Copley eclipsed him. Badger died in Boston on May 11, 1765.

Two of his sons later moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where they advertised themselves as painters. His works are preserved in institutions including the Worcester Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, and National Gallery of Art in Washington.