Freake Painter

{{Short description|17th-century American anonymous portraitist}}

File:Elizabeth Clarke Freake (Mrs. John Freake) and Baby Mary Freake-Gibbs Painter 1671–1674.jpg

The Freake Painter (fl. 1670s), also known as the Freake Limner and the Freake-Gibbs Painter, was an anonymous American portrait painter who has been described as "North America's first major artist".{{cite book |last1=Fairbanks |first1=Jonathan L. |author1-link=Jonathan Leo Fairbanks |editor1-last=Marter |editor1-first=Joan |title=The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art |date=2011 |isbn=9780195335798 |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195335798.001.0001/acref-9780195335798-e-700?rskey=lwlkj2&result=3 |access-date=9 June 2022 |chapter=Freake painter|publisher=Oxford University Press }}{{cite web |title=Unidentified artist (17th century) |url=https://www.worcesterart.org/collection/Early_American/Artists/unidentified_17th/freakbiography/ |website=Early American Paintings |publisher=Worcester Art Museum |access-date=9 June 2022}}{{cite book |last1=Morgan |first1=Ann Lee |title=The Oxford Dictionary of American Art and Artists |date=2018 |publisher=Oxford UP |edition=2nd |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191807671.001.0001/acref-9780191807671-e-474?rskey=lwlkj2&result=2 |chapter=Freake Painter|isbn=978-0-19-180767-1 }}{{cite news |last1=Adams |first1=Henry |title=Freake Out! |url=https://www.themagazineantiques.com/article/freake-out/ |access-date=9 June 2022 |work=The Magazine Antiques |date=3 September 2021}}

About ten portraits, all painted between 1670 and 1674 and showing residents of Boston, have been attributed to the Freake Painter. It has been suggested that the artist might be identified as Samuel Clement (1635–78), the son of Augustine Clement who had arrived in New England in 1635 having previously trained as a painter in England.

His work Mrs. Elizabeth Freake and Baby Mary appeared on a United States Postal Service postage stamp in 1998, one of a series celebrating "Four Centuries of American Art".{{cite web |title=32c "Mrs. Elizabeth Freake and Baby Mary" single |url=https://postalmuseum.si.edu/object/npm_2000.2021.150 |website=postalmuseum.si.edu |publisher=Smithsonian: National Postal Museum |access-date=9 June 2022 |language=en |date=1998}}