See also
| Name: | Joshua Reynolds |
| Sex: | Male |
| Father: | Samuel Reynolds (1681-1745) |
| Mother: | Theophila Potter (1688-1756) |
| Birth | 16 Jul 1723 | Plympton Earls, Devon |
| Title | Sir | |
| Death | 23 Feb 1792 (age 68) | London |
| Burial | 1792 | St. Paul's Cathedral, London |
Sir Joshua Reynolds (July 16, 1723 to February 23, 1792) was the most important and influential of 18th century English painters, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders (with Thomas Gainsborough) and first President of the Royal Academy. George III appreciated his merits and knighted him in 1769.
Reynolds was born in Plympton St Maurice, Devon, on 16 July 1723, and apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable portrait painter Thomas Hudson, with whom he remained until 1743. From 1749 to 1752, he spent over two years in Italy, where he studied the Old Masters and acquired a taste for the "Grand Style". From 1753 he lived and worked in London. He became a close friend of Dr Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Henry Thrale, David Garrick and fellow artist Angelica Kauffmann. He was one of the earliest members of the Royal Society of Arts.
Reynolds was a brilliant academic. His lectures (Discourses) on art, delivered at the Royal Academy between 1769 and 1790, are remembered for their sensitivity and perception. In 1789 he lost the sight of his left eye, and on 23 February 1792 he died in his house in Leicester Fields, London. He was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.