A noted British American folk painter, John Bradley was active in New York City and its environs from 1832 until 1847. During that period, he successfully plied his trade as a limner, attracting commissions from affluent patrons who were drawn to his engaging style, with its emphasis on crisp lines and the painstaking rendering of detail. Indeed, Bradley’s paintings have been featured in numerous publications and exhibitions devoted to the tradition of folk art and naïve painting in the United States. Today, examples of his work can be found in major North American collections, among them The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.
Details related to Bradley’s life and career remain elusive. According to current research findings, he was born in Sapiston, in the Suffolk district of eastern England, to Francis and Sarah Bradley. Probably self-taught, his status as an immigrant artist was established in 1966 by Mary Childs Black and Stuart P. Feld, who determined his origins and aesthetic approach predicated on five portraits of members of the Totten family of Staten Island that bear the inscription “Drawn by I. Bradley. / From Great Britton.” (See Mary Childs Black and Stuart P. Feld, “Drawn by I. Bradley From Great Britton,” The National Gallery of Canada Bulletin 4 [August 1966], pp. 1–8; and Mary Childs Black and Stuart P. Feld, “Drawn by I. Bradley From Great Britton,” The Magazine Antiques 90 (October 1966), pp. 502–509. Black and Feld’s authoritative study includes a checklist of twenty-two works by Bradley.
The exact date of Bradley’s arrival in America remains uncertain. However, the recent discovery of an oil by Bradley titled Painting of a Prize Cow in a Field and signed “Drawn by I. Bradley, Honington, Suffolk 1827,” and a pair of portraits of children that are signed “I. Bradley, Limner, Suffolk 1830,” indicate that the artist was a resident of England until at least until the early 1830s.
In 1833, Bradley executed his first known portrait commission of Manhattanites––a pair of dated portraits of the Dutch-born dry goods merchant Simon Content and his wife Angelina Pike Content (Mrs. John Gordon, New York). His earliest documented portrait of a Staten Islander features a half-length likeness of Asher Androvette (1832; American Folk Art Museum, New York), which depicts the subject––a Staten Island merchant (born circa 1785)––holding a copy of the November 29, 1832, issue of The New York and Richmond County Free Press. The nature of Bradley’s involvement with artistic activity in the southwestern tip of Staten Island remains a mystery; it is believed that he may have had family members who lived there, among them an aging relative, also named “John Bradley,” who resided in a home for retired seamen in Sailors’ Snug Harbor. Suffice to say, Bradley’s connection with what was then known as the Borough of Richmond proved to be propitious: during 1833 and 1834, he painted nine portraits of prominent locals from the Cole, Totten, and Ellis families.
Bradley’s earliest listing in the New York City directory appeared in 1836, where he was described as a painter of portraits and miniatures based at 56 Hammersley Street. In 1837––the year he began signing his paintings “J. Bradley” instead of using the old-fashioned English form of “I.” for John––he was working out of 128 Spring Street, and in 1844 his address was recorded as 134 Spring Street. During these years, Bradley also enjoyed patronage from clients living in Freehold, New Jersey and Newton Hook, New York. His final listing in the city directory appeared in 1847, after which time his whereabouts, and his fate, remain unknown. While portrait work occupied most of his time, the fact that he is known to have painted a pair of likenesses with oil and distemper (the latter medium associated with wall and poster painting) suggests that Bradley may have supplemented his income through decorative and commercial work.
