Francis Guy

Francis Guy (c. 1760–1820) was an English-born American painter. Mostly remembered for his topographic views of Brooklyn, Guy is today highly regarded as one of America's earliest and most important landscape artists.

Biography

Guy participated in the family business as a London silk dyer before he moved to the United States in September 1795, where he intended to continue his career. He lived briefly in New York and Philadelphia and by 1798 had settled in Baltimore. After a fire destroyed his business in 1799 in Baltimore, Guy decided to devote himself to painting. Although he had no formal art education, Guy was able to learn by himself, with the help of patrons like Robert Gilmor. Robert Gilmor was one of Baltimore’s noted early art collectors, who allowed Guy to copy his pictures. Guy died before the completion of the very ambitious exhibition he had planned at the Shakespeare Club in Brooklyn in 1820.