He impressed King George III and was largely responsible for the launch of the Royal Academy, of which he became the second president (after Sir Joshua Reynolds).

While West was in Lancaster in 1756, his patron, a gunsmith named William Henry, encouraged him to paint a Death of Socrates based on an engraving in Charles Rollin's Ancient History.

His resulting composition, which significantly differs from the source, has been called "the most ambitious and interesting painting produced in colonial America".

West learned Wollaston's techniques for painting the shimmer of silk and satin, and also adopted some of "his mannerisms, the most prominent of which was to give all his subjects large almond-shaped eyes, which clients thought very chic".

West expanded his repertoire by copying works of Italian painters such as Titian and Raphael direct from the originals.

In Rome he met a number of international neo-classical artists including German-born Anton Rafael Mengs, Scottish Gavin Hamilton, and Austrian Angelica Kauffman.

He stayed for a month at Bath with William Allen, who was also in the country, and visited his half-brother Thomas West at Reading at the urging of his father.

"[17] Drummond tried to raise subscriptions to fund an annuity for West, so that he could give up portraiture and devote himself entirely to more ambitious compositions.

[18] West was soon on good terms with the king, and the two men conducted long discussions on the state of art in England, including the idea of the establishment of a Royal Academy.

[19] The academy came into being in 1768, with West one of the primary leaders of an opposition group formed out of the existing Society of Artists of Great Britain; Joshua Reynolds was its first president.

West became known for his large scale history paintings, which use expressive figures, colours and compositional schemes to help the spectator to identify with the scene represented.

St Paul's Church, in the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham, has an important enamelled stained glass east window made in 1791 by Francis Eginton, modelled on an altarpiece painted c. 1786 by West, now in the Dallas Museum of Art.

Following a loss of royal patronage at the beginning of the 19th century, West began a series of large-scale religious works.

The first, Christ Healing the Sick was originally intended as a gift to Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia; instead he sold it to the British Institution for £3,000, which in turn presented it to the National Gallery.

The success of the picture led him to paint a series of even larger works, including his Death on the Pale Horse, exhibited in 1817.

[30] Many American artists studied under him in London, including Ralph Earl and later his son, Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl, Samuel Morse, Robert Fulton, Charles Willson Peale, Rembrandt Peale, Matthew Pratt, Gilbert Stuart, John Trumbull, Samuel Lovett Waldo, Washington Allston, Thomas Sully,[31] John Green, and Abraham Delanoy.