Skip to main content
Born in Baltimore, where he earned his living as a sign painter, Tilyard also ran a portrait drawing studio and was highly praised by artists Robert Gilmor and Thomas Sully. Although he painted numerous portraits in the mid-1820s, Tilyard was never financially successful.
Exhibition History"The Portrayal of the Negro in American Painting," Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME, May 15, 1964-July 15, 1964; Forum Gallery, New York, NY, September 18, 1967 - October 8, 1967.
“Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art,” Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY, August 23 – December 31, 2008; New York State Museum, Albany, NY, September 9, 2009 – January 6, 2010.
BibliographyGretchen Sullivan Soren and Mary C. Aimonovitch, Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art, (Cooperstown, NY: Fenimore Art Museum, 2008), pp. 14-15, ill., cover ill.
Artist
Philip Thomas Coke Tilyard
(1785 - 1830)
Portrait of a Child
Date1815-1825
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsSight: 24 × 19 1/2 in. (61 × 49.5 cm)
Object numberN0250.1961
Credit LineCollection of the Fenimore Art Museum. Gift of Stephen C. Clark
Photograph by Richard Walker
Label TextPerhaps a young girl, this honest, compassionate representation of an anonymous African American child is unusual for an early 19th-century white artist such as Philip Thomas Cole Tilyard. Was the well-dressed child enslaved, the child of a free African American family, or in the care of a white abolitionist family? The child’s gender, class, and social position remain uncertain. Born in Baltimore, where he earned his living as a sign painter, Tilyard also ran a portrait drawing studio and was highly praised by artists Robert Gilmor and Thomas Sully. Although he painted numerous portraits in the mid-1820s, Tilyard was never financially successful.
Exhibition History"The Portrayal of the Negro in American Painting," Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME, May 15, 1964-July 15, 1964; Forum Gallery, New York, NY, September 18, 1967 - October 8, 1967.
“Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art,” Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY, August 23 – December 31, 2008; New York State Museum, Albany, NY, September 9, 2009 – January 6, 2010.
BibliographyGretchen Sullivan Soren and Mary C. Aimonovitch, Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art, (Cooperstown, NY: Fenimore Art Museum, 2008), pp. 14-15, ill., cover ill.
On View
On view
