Portrait and miniature painter Charles Osgood was born in Salem, Massachusetts on February 25, 1809 the son of a shipmaster and he died in that town in 1890. Osgood grew up in a prosperous maritime town (Salem, MA). He was primarily self-taught, but went to England (1823-1826) and in 1827 studied with Boston painter Chester Harding (1792-1866) who was influenced by Gilbert Stuart. Osgood’s decision to pass an opportunity to become a banker paid off. Within months, Osgood opened his own studio in Boston at 6 State Street, studied the work of Gilbert Stuart and painted painterly portraits of Judge Story and the Winthrop family in a spontaneous manner. In June of 1828 Osgood returned to Salem and opened a studio there, completing 35 portraits that year. For 3 years Osgood worked in Salem as a portrait painter, but felt so sheltered he moved to New York City (1831-December 1832), only to return to Salem more sophisticated and adept. The Essex Institute’s catalogue says that Osgood “quickly achieved an artistic style well beyond anything then known in Salem” (p. 10).
Osgood became one of Salem’s most successful portrait painter, executing charming, warm portraits in an academic, realistic style. He painted people as they appeared when they sat before him. His canvases of John Quincy Adams (6th president of the United States), Edward Holyoke (first president of the Essex Historical Society), William Driver (who is credit for giving the name “Old Glory” to the American flag ca. 1831), Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1840 (famous author), artist Thomas Cole and others boosted his reputation and career.
The artist resided on Central Street in Salem, but maintained studios in Boston as early as 1827 and later in Roxbury, MA and in New York City. Osgood’s wife was a sister of the artist Mary Holyoke Ward, whose nephew Abel Nichols trained under Osgood and became a portraitist. Osgood exhibited at Boston’s Athenaeum in 1835,1836 and 1837. His work of the 1840s is more modern in approach, showing the clothing and attitudes of his sitters in a softened realistic manner.
Osgood earned a good living teaching portraiture and painting large canvases and small miniatures on ivory. After he painted the Portrait of Nathaniel Hawthorne (in the permanent collection of the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem) in 1840, Boston Brahmins, merchants and statesmen commissioned Osgood to paint their portraits. He painted portraits until 1863 and then turned to landscape painting until his death on December 26, 1890.
The Index to American Art Periodicals (page 1315) states that Osgood exhibited in New York City in 1859 and his paintings were in the American Art Union Gallery as early as 1848. He is in the permanent collection of the Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, MA); American Antiquarian Society (Worcester, MA) and Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston, MA).