Joseph Whiting Stock

Place: Springfield

Born: 1815

Death: 1855

Biography:

Joseph Whiting Stock was born on 30 January 1815 in Springfield, Massachusetts. When Stock was eleven years old, an oxcart fell on him and he was paraplegic for the rest of his life. After this accident, he began to study painting under Franklin White, a pupil of the painter Chester Harding, on the advice of his physician. He was commissioned to do a series of anatomical drawings by Dr. James Swan in 1834. That year, Dr. Swan constructed a wheelchair which enabled Stock to paint large canvasses and be lifted on trains so as to travel for commissions. For the next two decades, Stock accepted commissions for portraits around New England, working in Warren and Bristol, Rhode Island, New Bedford, Massachusetts, and Middletown, Goshen, and Port Jervis, New York. His studios were located in his hometown of Springfield throughout this time. In 1855, Stock died of tuberculosis in Springfield. He was forty years old.