Robert Peckham

Robert Peckham (1785 – 1877)

A Massachusetts portrait painter, Robert Peckham was active in the country districts of New England, but also spent time in Boston and Northampton after his marriage.

By 1821, he was settled in Westminster where he established a reputation for portrait painting, described by one art historian as “flat, hard and stiff.” (Opitz) Among his subjects was John Greenleaf Whittier.

Robert Peckham was also a Congregational Church activist, especially in the temperance and abolitionist movements.

Sources include:
George C. Groce and David H. Wallace, The New York Historical Society’s Dictionary of Artists in America, 1564-1860, p. 496
Glenn B. Opitz, Editor, Mantle Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers, p. 710

Biography from the Archives of AskART