George Stubbs
George Stubbs (August 25, 1724 ? July 10, 1806) was a
British oil painting artist, best known for his paintings of
horses.
His most famous work is probably Whistlejacket, a painting of a
prancing horse commissioned by the 3rd Marquess of Rockingham,
which is now in the National Gallery in London. This and two other
paintings carried out for Rockingham break with convention in
having plain backgrounds. Throughout the 1760s he produced a wide
range of individual and group portraits of horses, sometimes
accompanied by hounds. He often painted horses with their grooms,
whom he always painted as individuals. Meanwhile he also continued
to accept commissions for portraits of people, including some group
portraits. From 1761 to 1776 he exhibited at the Society of
Artists, but in 1775 he switched his allegiance to the recently
founded but already more prestigious Royal Academy.
Stubbs also painted more exotic animals animals including lions,
tigers, giraffes, monkeys, and rhinoceroses, which he was able to
observe in private menageries. He became preoccupied with the theme
of a wild horse threatened by a lion and produced several
variations on this theme. These and other works became well known
at the time through engravings of Stubbs' work, which appeared in
increasing numbers in the 1770s and 1780s.
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