Samuel Lovett Waldo (1783-1861)
• Was an American portrait painter.
• Waldo was born in Windham, Connecticut.
• At the age of sixteen, he moved to Hartford to begin his formal art training under the tutelage of Joseph Steward.
Four years later, he set up shop as a portraitist in Hartford.
• While in Hartford, he had made the acquaintance of congressman John Rutledge, Jr., who was impressed with his work and, in 1803, invited him to come to Charleston, SC.
• He moved in 1806 to London.
• He was studying with Benjamin West and John Singleton Copley.
• He married Elizabeth Wood of Liverpool, they had five children.
• Elizabeth died in 1825.
• In New York City on 9 May 1826, he would marry Deliverance Mapes and have seven more children.
• In 1809, he returned to the United States and established a portrait studio in New York.
• Waldo had an apprentice William Jewett, a young coach painter from New London, CT.
• In addition to his painting, Waldo served as a director of the American Academy of the Fine Arts from 1817 until its dissolution in 1841.
• He was also a founding member of the National Academy of Design.
• He died in New York on February 16, 1861, and was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Kings County.
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