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George Stubbs ( 1724 - 1806 )  Category ( Painters ) [suggest a correction]
 

George StubbsGeorge Stubbs was an eighteenth-century British painter. He is most famous for his paintings of horses and his deep understanding of the anatomy of horses. He was born into the lower middling classes. Perhaps his father's career as a currier (a manufacturer of leather goods, particularly those related to equestrian use) exposed him early and often to horses, but what is known is that he was briefly apprenticed to a painter and engraver named Hamlet Winstanley. However, the young Stubbs grew frustrated with only being allowed to copy. He abandoned the apprenticeship and was afterwards entirely self-taught. By the 1740s he was working as a portrait painter in the North of England, and for six years he studied human anatomy at a county hospital. His interest in anatomy came to him in early childhood, and remained a keen lifelong interest. Indeed, one of his earliest surviving works is a collection of illustrations used for a textbook on midwifery.

Stubbs visited Italy during the 1750s, where he observed and learned from the examples of the great Italian masters. Upon his return to England, he spent nearly two years focusing solely on the dissection of horses, in order to fully understand the equine skeletal and muscular structures. In around 1759 he moved to London, where just one year later he published The Anatomy of the Horse. Even prior to that publication, Stubbs had attracted the attention of area aristocrats, who quickly realized the level of anatomical understanding exhibited by Stubbs. One of his earliest aristocratic patrons was the Third Duke of Richmond, who commissioned three large pictures from Stubbs. Following his first success, Stubbs began to attract a number of aristocratic patrons. A few years later he was able to buy a fine house in one of the latest, trendiest London neighborhoods, designed by architect John Nash. Stubbs lived in that home for the rest of his life.

Perhaps his most famous work is "Whistlejacket," a painting of a prancing horse commissioned by the Marquess of Rockingham. The work is now located in the National Gallery in London. Stubbs continued to paint horses in a variety of setting, postures, and with their human companions and grooms. However, Stubbs continued to accept commissions for portraits as well. Over time he began to add more exotic animals to his repertoire, including lions, giraffes, and monkeys. A subject of particular interest was the theme of a wild horse being threatened by a lion. In the 1770s he began to also paint portraits of dogs. Stubbs remained artistically active well into his old age, including his usual subjects and also pastoral settings and subjects. By the 1790s he attracted the attention of the Prince of Wales, whom he painted on horseback.

Image: Self Portrait, oil on canvas.


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www.kfki.hu/~arthp/bio/s/stubbs/biograph.html [Comment on this link]
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Title :Biography
Description : Biography of STUBBS, George (b. 1724, Liverpool, d. 1806, London) in the Web Gallery of Art, a searchable image collection and database of European painting and sculpture (1100-1850)
 
 
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Title :George Stubbs - Biography
Description : A biography of artist George Stubbs.
 
 
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