Samuel F. B. Morse's first career was as an artist. After graduating from Yale in 1810, he went to England to study painting with Washington Allston and Benjamin West. This self-portrait was probably completed soon after his arrival. On his return to the United States in 1815, Morse became a portrait painter and was a founder of the National Academy of Design in New York. By the early 1830s, Morse turned from art to conducting a series of electrical experiments, which culminated in 1838 with a model for the modern telegraph. By 1844, he was seated in the United States Capitol tapping out the first long-distance telegraph message in a code that still bears his name.

Self-portrait
Oil on millboard, 1812
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Gift of the James Smithson Society
NPG.80.208

Enlarged image

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