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Stubbs, George (English, 1724-1806)'s works |
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George Stubbs
(1724-1806)
George Stubbs belongs to the artists whose names are re-discovered in the 20th century. At his time he was known only to a narrow circle of aristocratic sportsmen and horse lovers, for his contemporaries he was a mere horse-painter. A broadened critical view of the 20th century revealed the full extent of his achievement, his innovations and exceptional originality and power. His works are still mostly, with some exceptions, in private collections in the houses for which they were executed. This, of course, restricts the number of his admirers. But his reassessment has lifted him to the level of the greatest of his time.
George Stubbs was born in 1724 in Liverpool, son of a currier and one of five children. He had a minimum of formal instruction: in 1739 he was briefly a pupil of the minor painter Hamlet Winstanley. This was apparently enough to launch Stubbs off as a provincial portrait painter. As such he worked (1743-53) in Wigan, Leeds, York and at Hull. When at York he already knew enough anatomy to give private lessons to medical students at York Hospital and this led to his commissions in 1751 to illustrate a book on midwifery by Dr. John Burton. He learnt enough of etching from a local engraver to etch the plates himself.
His interest in anatomy and its studies continued all his life and proved to be important not only to his art but also a new contribution to science. In 1766 his The Anatomy of the Horse was published, which added to his prestige; he worked on a comparative anatomy of a man, a tiger and common fowl until his death, it was left incomplete.
At the age of 30, in 1754 he went to Italy by boat. He is said to have gone with no enthusiasm for Italian art, but with a desire to confirm his view that nature, not art, was the only source of inspiration and improvement. On the return journey he made a stop in Marocco. It is believed that a scene he saw there inspired his later picture Horse Attacked by a Lion (1762-1765). In 1756, his son, George Townley Stubbs (d.1815), was born by Mary Spencer who had become his common-law wife. In 1759, the family moved to London.
In the 1760s-1770s, Stubbs lived in London. The nature of his commissions required him to travel almost as much as a topographical watercolourist of his day. A series of masterpieces mostly belonging to this decade was that depicting horses and foals. Some of the horses named and were painted for their owners, but others may have been prompted by Stubbs¡¯s own liking for variations on the theme Mares and Foals in a Wooded Landscape (1760-1762), Racehorses Belonging to the Duke of Richmond Exercising at Goodwood (1760-1761), Mares and Foals Disturbed by an Approaching Storm (1764-1766). As portraits his horses w.... |
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