Artist

John Ritto Penniman

born Milford, MA 1782-died Baltimore, MD 1841
Media - portrait_image_113789.jpg - 90430
Private Collection.
Also known as
  • J. R. Penniman
  • John Penniman
Born
Milford, Massachusetts, United States
Died
Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Active in
  • Boston, Massachusetts, United States
  • West Brookfield, Massachusetts, United States
Biography

John Ritto Penniman apprenticed as an ornamental painter in Roxbury, Massachusetts, at the age of eleven. He set up his own shop when he was twenty-one and settled in Boston, painting clock faces, signs, and furniture. He was friends with the artist Gilbert Stuart, spending time in his studio and even naming his only son after him. Penniman was a successful painter and lithographer but a bad businessman whose drinking ruined his career. In 1827 he sold all of his paintings to pay off his debts and spent the rest of his life in trouble with the law. One of the artist’s relatives described him as “a very genial gentleman who loved his wine. His patrons were much annoyed by his habits of leaving them in their poses should the urge for liquor come upon him . . .” (Penniman Archives, Braintree Historical Society, in “John Ritto Penniman: An Ingenious New England Artist,” The Magazine Antiques, 1981)

Works by this artist (3 items)

Eric J. García, Chicano Codices #1: Simplified Histories: The U.S. Invasion of Mexico 1846-1848, 2015, offset lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Lichtenberg Family Foundation, 2020.21.1R-V, © 2020, Eric J. García
Chicano Codices #1: Simplified Histories: The U.S. Invasion…
Date2015
offset lithograph on paper
Not on view
Eric J. García, Lechuga Lucha, 2014, lithograph and screenprint on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Gilberto Cárdenas and Dolores García, 2019.51.56, ©2020, Eric J. García
Lechuga Lucha
Date2014
lithograph and screenprint on paper
Not on view