Artist

James Jebusa Shannon

born Auburn, NY 1862-died London, England 1923
Media - 1917.5.1 - SAAM-1917.5.1_1 - 50929
Orlando Rouland, J. J. Shannon, R. A., ca. 1910, oil on canvas mounted on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1917.5.1
Also known as
  • Sir James Jebusa Shannon
  • J. J. Shannon
Born
Auburn, New York, United States
Died
London, England
Biography

[T]his expatriate artist living in Britain enjoyed a stellar reputation and was often compared to another Gilded Age artist, John Singer Sargent. Supported by the patronage of Queen Victoria, [James Jebusa] Shannon enjoyed commercial success that brought riches to his family. After a lucrative career and a fashionable existence spent gambling in Monte Carlo, motoring in his Rolls Royce, and entertaining friends, the painter was knighted in 1922, the year before his death.

Elizabeth Prelinger The Gilded Age: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (New York and Washington, D.C.: Watson-Guptill Publications, in cooperation with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2000)