John Mare

John Mare, Jr. (born New York City, 1739; died Edenton, North Carolina between June, 1802 and April, 1803) was an American painter, businessman, and public figure.

Life Mare was born in New York City, the son of John Mare, of Devonshire, and Mary Bes Mare, presumed to be of Dutch origin. His sister Mary was the wife of the painter William Williams, who may have taught him, although nothing is known of his training as an artist or of his education otherwise.

Mare is recorded in Albany, New York after 1759; in that year he moved to the city with his wife, Anne Morris, and his son was baptized there in 1760. In that same year Mare is supposed to have returned to New York City,

Mare married again while in North Carolina, in 1784; who were taken in by the family of their aunt Lydia. Also dating from that year is a portrait of Benjamin Youngs Prime, currently in the New York Historical Society collection; these two are the last dated portraits ascribed to Mare, and it appears he stopped painting at this point.

Mare's best-known work today is the portrait of merchant Jeremiah Platt currently in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is thinly painted; rather than apply glazing, the artist chose to blend still-wet pigments on the surface of the painting to create texture. The portrait is the only one of its kind, three-quarter length, known by the artist's hand; judging by the prominence he gives to the chair on which Platt leans, and the damask drapery background, it appears that he was unfamiliar with the format and compensated accordingly. The portrait suggests knowledge of the work of John Singleton Copley, and is adjudged as Mare's most successful known piece; he is otherwise thought of as an average painter, and his style has been described as "stiff and awkward".