Robert Feke

While Robert Feke was one of the first American-born portrait painters, to identify him as an American artist is complicated; like many colonial artists, he turned to European prints for poses, costumes, and settings. Raised in Oyster Bay, New York, Feke painted in New York City, Newport, Philadelphia, and Boston. His career in America seems to have ended abruptly—while some scholars believe he eventually traveled to Barbados, no record of his life there has ever been found.