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George Stubbs

Born: Liverpool, 25 August 1724
Died: London, 10 July 1806
Nationality: English
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)