John Bradley (artist)
John Bradley was a British-born American portrait painter who worked in New York in the 1830s and 1840s. He should not be confused with other artists named John Bradley from England.
What we know about him is scarce. He signed some early English pictures with inscriptions like “Drawn by I. Bradley from Great Britton,” as seen on five Totten family portraits. Bradley’s exact birth and death dates aren’t known, and there is no solid evidence he had formal art training. Some of his early works may show he did decorative or commercial painting in addition to portraits, especially since distemper was used on some pieces.
Evidence of Bradley’s early career includes a painting titled Painting of a Prize Cow in a Field (1827) signed “Drawn by I Bradley, Honington, Suffolk,” and two children’s portraits from 1830 signed “I. Bradley, Limner, Suffolk.” His earliest known U.S. work is The Cellist (1832), and by the end of that year he seems to have moved to Staten Island, where he painted Asher Androvette holding a newspaper.
New York City directory listings from 1836–1847 show him as a portrait and sometimes miniature painter at three SoHo addresses near Houston Street: 56 Hammersley Street (1836–37), 128 Spring Street (1837–44), and 134 Spring Street (1844–47). The addresses on some paintings help date them. There is no record of a career after 1847.
Bradley’s best-known works include The Cellist (1832) in the Phillips Collection; Little Girl in Lavender (c. 1840) in the National Gallery of Art; Emma Homan (c. 1844) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and portraits of Staten Island residents from the Totten, Cole, and Ellis families (1840s) in the Staten Island Historical Society. Mille Farm (1835) in the Staten Island Museum shows a rare landscape signed by him, with animals appearing in several pieces. Animals also appear in Emma Homan and Little Girl in Lavender; Young Boy Feeding Rabbits (1831) places animals at the center of the scene.
Bradley’s portraits are noted for their vivid colors and clear outlines, with attention to personal traits that reveal a sitter’s character. He often painted waist-length portraits, but children and adults with musical instruments are shown full-length. His style blends careful composition with a somewhat naive charm.
Two of his paintings, John Totten and Ann Cole Totten, were stolen from the Staten Island Historical Society in 1970. John Totten was recovered, but Ann Cole Totten remained missing until a 2021 auction in Alameda, California. Some works once attributed to John Bradley have been reattributed to Ammi Phillips.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 19:27 (CET).