Source A: Winthrop Chandler Biography
Winthrop Chandler was born in 1747 on Chandler Hill, a farming area between Woodstock and Thompson, Connecticut. He was the youngest of ten children. His father, William Chandler, was a farmer and surveyor who died when Winthrop was just seven years old. At age fourteen, Winthrop applied for a guardian so he could begin an apprenticeship. He selected his brother-in-law, Samuel McClellan, and likely moved to Boston to study art, although records of his training do not survive.
By the late 1760s, Chandler had returned home and started painting portraits of local families, including his own relatives. His early work included large landscape murals, called overmantels, which were painted directly onto plaster walls. One of his first was for the home of his guardian. It showed nearby homes, horses, and people, including McClellan in a red coat. These scenes are now considered some of the earliest known American landscape paintings created by an American-born artist.
Chandler continued to paint both portraits and landscapes through the 1770s. He completed works for local leaders and wealthy families, like the Ruggles and Putnam households, often basing his scenes on real people and places. Many of the buildings shown in his paintings still stand today. As both a trained artist and experienced house painter, Chandler paid close attention to architectural details, colors, and settings. In some works, he even included the daily lives of people in the community. One painting shows a servant standing in the doorway of a home, giving us a rare glimpse into the presence of enslaved labor in colonial New England.
In 1772, Chandler married Mary Gleason, and they had seven children. Although he received some commissions from friends and neighbors, he struggled to earn enough money. Chandler also worked as a house painter, frame gilder, and once painted a weathervane at the courthouse. Unlike many artists of the time who traveled to find work, Chandler mostly stayed in one region. During these years, he also painted scenes related to the Revolutionary War, including a view of the Battle of Bunker Hill. Later, he moved his family to Worcester, Massachusetts, likely to find more work.
Sadly, Chandler faced many hardships. His son and wife died within a few years of each other, and his remaining children went to live with relatives. He returned to Woodstock in poor health and died in 1790 at the age of forty-three.
Chandler left behind paintings that give us a window into colonial life. His works show homes, landscapes, and people from the world he lived in.
Source B: An overmantel for Reverend Putnam, minister of the Congregational Church, Pomfret, Connecticut by Winthrop Chandler. 1777.
