George Stubbs

Born: Liverpool, 25 August 1724

Died: London, 10 July 1806

Nationality: English


Works by this Artist

Lion Attacking a Horse
George Stubbs, 1765

Background

son of currier (leather-preparator)

Studies

largely self-taught; with painter Hamlet Winstanley (1741); studied anatomy at York Hospital (1745); independently studied equine (horse) anatomy (1756-57)

Career

1751 – teaches self engraving for commission to illustrate John Burton’s Essay towards a Complete New System of Midwifery

1761 – begins exhibiting regularly with Society of Artists (London)

1766 – publishes The Anatomy of the Horse

1772-3 – elected president of Society of Artists

1775 – begins exhibiting at Royal Academy

1781 – election to RA membership fails because Stubbs does not submit a diploma picture

1803 – stops exhibiting at RA

Travels

Rome (1754)

Commissions from

Prince of Wales (George IV)

Important Artworks

Whistlejacket, c. 1760 (The National Gallery, London)

The Duke of Dorset’s Hunter with a Groom and a Dog, 1786 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

Readings

Edgerton, Judy. George Stubbs, Painter: Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2007

Potts, Alex. “Natural Order and the Call of the Wild: The Politics of Animal Picturing,” Oxford Art Journal, vol. 13, no. 1 (1990): 12-33

Taylor, Basil. “George Stubbs: ‘The Lion and Horse’ Theme,” The Burlington Magazine, vol. 107, no. 743 (February 1965): 81-7

Warner, Malcolm. Stubbs and the Horse. Exhibition catalogue. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004

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