Who was George Stubbs?
Painter.
Date and Place of Birth:
24th August 1724, Dale Street, Liverpool, England.
Family Background:
Son of a prosperous tanner.
Education:
Briefly apprenticed to a painter but largely
self-taught.
Chronology/Biography of George Stubbs:
1739: Takes his
first painting lesson under Harriet Winstanley.
1743: Over the next
few years he plies his trade as a portrait painter in Leeds then
York, Wigan and Hull. Begins to study anatomy in earnest.
1754: Stubbs sails
to Italy to study painting and then returns to England via Morocco.
1756: Birth of his
first son George Townley.
1758: Studies the
anatomy of horses in Horkstow in Lincolnshire.
1759: Stubbs moves
to London.
1760: Receives his
first commission for paintings of horses.
1763: Moves to 24
Somerset Street, Portman Square. Exhibits with the Society of Artists.
1773: Elected as
President of the Society of Artists.
1775: Experiments
with enamel painting when he meets Josiah Wedgwood
at his Staffordshire pottery factory.
1780: Stubbs becomes
an Associate of the Royal Academy of Arts in London.
1781: Elected a
full member of the Royal Academy.
1790: Is commissioned
to do a series of portraits of racehorses for the "Turf Review".
1795: Works on his
"Comparative Anatomical Exposition of the Structure of the
Human Body with that of the Tiger and Common Fowl", a work
which he is never to complete.
1801: Stubbs sues
Sir Henry Vane-Tempest for non payment of his bill for the picture
of the racehorse Hambletonian, now in Northern Ireland.
Written Works:
- 1766: "The
Anatomy of the Horse".
Marriage:
Never married but his long time common law wife
was Mary Spencer.
Date and Place of Death:
12th July 1806, London, England.
Age at Death:
82.
Site of Grave:
St. Marylebone "Old " Parish Church,
Marylebone High Street, London, England.
Places of Interest:
BERKSHIRE:
Windsor Castle, Windsor.
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE:
Ascot racecourse.
CAMBRIDGESHIRE:
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
ESSEX:
St Osyth Priory.
GLOUCESTERSHIRE:
Berkeley Castle.
LONDON:
The National Gallery.
National Portrait Gallery
Tate Britain.
Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.
MANCHESTER:
City Art Gallery.
MERSEYSIDE:
Walker art Gallery
Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, Wirral
STAFFORDSHIRE:
Wedgwood Museum, Barlaston, Stoke on Trent.
SUSSEX:
Goodwood House, Chichester.
WARWICKSHIRE:
Upton House, Banbury.
YORKSHIRE:
Temple Newsam House, Leeds.
SCOTLAND:
Hunterian Museum, Glasgow.
