Mary Black (artist)

Black was born in London the first of two children born to the artist Thomas Black, (1715–1777), and his wife, Mary.{{cite book|editor1-first= H. C. G. |editor1-last=Matthew |editor2-first=Brian |editor2-last=Harrison |editor1-link=Colin Matthew |editor2-link=Brian Harrison (historian) |publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2004|title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Vol. 5 (Belle-Blackman)|isbn=0-19-861355-5}} By 1760, she was working as an assistant to the artist Allan Ramsay producing copies and reproductions of works by Old Masters.{{cite book|publisher=Editions Grund, Paris|year=2006|title=Benezit Dictionary of Artists Volume 2 Bedeschini-Bulow|isbn=2-7000-3070-2}} She received a commission to paint portraits of Dr. James Mounsey, a physician in the Russian court, and his cousin Dr. Messenger Mounsey. The latter picture, a three-quarters length portrait, survives and is held by the Royal College of Physicians in London. For many years the painting was attributed to her father. In 1768, Black exhibited four portraits with the Society of Artists and went on to become an honorary member of the society.{{cite book|author1=Brian Stewart |author2=Mervyn Cutten |publisher=Antique Collectors' Club|year=1997|title=The Dictionary of Portrait Painters in Britain up to 1920|isbn=1-85149-173-2}}

As well as painting portraits, Black taught painting to members of a number of fashionable, aristocratic families. Financial success allowed her to live independently while maintaining a household with servants and a carriage. She never married and died suddenly at home in London in 1814.

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Category:1730s births

Category:1814 deaths

Category:18th-century English painters

Category:18th-century English women artists

Category:19th-century English painters

Category:Painters from London

Category:18th-century British women painters

Category:19th-century English women painters