biografia di Scipio MOORHEAD (XVIII)

Addresses: Boston, active about 1773

Profession: Portrait painter

Comments: Black portrait painter. He was a servant of the Rev. John Moorehead of Boston. An engraved portrait of Boston poet Phillis Wheatley (National Portrait Gallery, Washington) is believed to have been made after a work by Moorehead. Although the original painting is unlocated and no other works have yet been attributed to him, it is known that Moorehead and Wheatly were acquaintances. Moorehead's skill as a portrait painter was noted by Wheatley herself in a poem written in his honor. Wheatley (1753-1784) was the first black and second woman in America to publish a book of poems. The portrait engraving served as a frontispiece to her first volume, published in 1773. There is another possible contemporary reference to Moorehead found in the Boston News-Letter of January, 1773, which advertises the services of an unnamed black portrait painter. His name is sometimes spelled as Moorehead.

Sources: G&W; Porter, Modern Negro Art, 18; Boston News-Letter, Jan. 7, 1773 (quoted in Saunders and Miles, 31); Saunders and Miles, 30-31 and 309-101 (with repro of portrait engraving); Edmund Barry Gaither, The Spiral of Afro-American Art" in 300 Years of American Art, Volume 1, 380. "