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View of Baltimore: Basin and Federal Hill, from the Brickyards, by Francis Guy, 1803. Oil on canvas. 24 41/64 x 39 7/8 in. (62.6 x 101.3 cm.) Maryland Historical Society, City Life Museums Collection, Accession: MA8148.
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Perry Hall Slave Quarters, by Francis Guy, c. 1805. Oil on canvas. 21 13/16 x 29 59/64 in. (55.4 x 76.0 cm.) Maryland Historical Society, Accession: 1986-33.
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Daniel Bowly (1745-1807) and David Harris (1750/55-1809), by Francis Guy, c. 1805. Oil on canvas. 9 1/8 x 2 55/64 in. (23.2 x 7.3 cm.) Maryland Historical Society, Accession: 1934-9-6.
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Medium/Discipline: Painting
Birthplace: England
Place of Death: Brooklyn, New York
Maryland Affiliation: Depicts Maryland subjects, Active while in residence
Prominent Theme: Naval Battle Scenes (War of 1812); Landscape; Marine
Active Dates and Place: Baltimore, 1798-1817
Gender: Male
Race/Ethnicity: White
Biography: Considered one of the most important English artists to come to the New World in the late eighteenth century, Francis Guy arrived in America in 1795. It is unknown, but he may have moved to Baltimore as early as 1795. He had been a dyer in London, and continued the trade of silk dyeing upon his move to Baltimore. He developed machinery for the glazing and dyeing of silk and established a dye house in Baltimore which burned. Guy appears in the Baltimore directory for 1799 as a silk dyer, and from 1800 to 1815 as a landscape painter; he held his first exhibition shortly after his arrival in America in 1803. Guy's specialty was painting country estates. Guy also painted furniture and Maryland marine and naval battle scenes from the War of 1812. He was engaged by Archbishop John Carroll in 1812 to paint the Catholic Cathedral. In addition to his painting career, Francis Guy was an inventor and writer of religious essays and poetry. He moved to Brooklyn, New York about 1817 and continued painting there until his death.
Art-related Employment: painter; silk dyer
Other Employment: amateur inventor; poet; writer
Selected References: Dean, Mary A. [et al.]. 350 Years of Art & Architecture in Maryland (College Park : Art Gallery, and Gallery of the School of Architecture, University of Maryland), 1984.
Pleasants, J. Hall. Two Hundred and Fifty Years of Painting in Maryland (Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art), 1945.
Woods, Jean. Celebrating 350 Years: Nineteenth-Century Maryland Artists. (Hagerstown: Washington County Museum of Fine Arts exhibition April 1-29), 1984.
Maryland Institutions Holding Artworks: Maryland Historical Society
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