Upton house, Northampton holds an oil painting from this period signed by West entitled Thomas Smith and his family.
In 1757, the Dublin Society established a drawing school, with West as Master, which would later develop into the National College of Art and Design.
[2] West specialised in teaching the French rococo style, with expertise in life drawing in crayon and chalk.
In 1761 West was awarded a silver medal for excellence in teaching when 20 of his students received premiums from the Dublin Society.
[2] Thomas James Mulvany commented that West's life drawing in chalk "have never been surpassed and perhaps but rarely equalled...They are infallible models for study and have produced more good draughtsmen, and have impressed finer notions of the human form, than have the works of any other artist in the last century.