Gainsborough Dupont was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, on 20 December 1754, the only son of Sarah, one of Thomas Gainsborough's elder sisters, and Philip Dupont. He was apprenticed to Gainsborough in January 1772 and was to work with him--so far as we know his uncle's only assistant--until Gainsborough's death in 1788. He was trained at the Royal Academy Schools, which he entered in March 1775. From 1779 on he made a number of mezzotints of Gainsborough's portraits. He took over the studio in 1788, and, after Mrs. Gainsborough's death in 1793, moved to Bloomsbury. Dupont was much employed by George III, who admired his work, and to William Pitt he owed his principal commission, a large group portrait. Thomas Harris, the proprietor of Covent Garden Theatre, engaged him to paint a series of portraits of actors. He also painted landscapes. On three occasions he tried, unsuccessfully, to secure election as an Associate of the Royal Academy. He died in London on 20 January 1797.
[Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 63-64.]
Artist Bibliography
1964
Hayes, John. "The Trinity House Group Portrait." The Burlington Magazine 106 (1964): 309-316.
1965
Hayes, John. "The Drawings of Gainsborough Dupont." MD 3 (1965): 243-256.
1968
Hayes, John. "Thomas Harris, Gainsborough Dupont and the Theatrical Gallery at Belmont." The Connoisseur 169 (1968): 221-227.
1982
Hayes, John. "The Problem of Gainsborough Dupont." In The Landscape Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough. 2 vols. London and New York, 1982: 1:187-236.
1992
Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 63-64.