George Stubbs

1724-1806

European Artist

Stubbs was born in Liverpool, England. Apparently self-taught, he practiced as a portrait painter in various northern centers, settling in York about 1745. Obsessed with anatomy, which he studied at York Hospital and taught privately to medical students. Stubbs began the studies that were to result in The Anatomy of the Horse in 1766. During the 1760s Stubbs acquired an immense reputation as a painter. He worked on all scales, occasionally producing huge works, and he painted in this decade racing, hunting, and shooting scenes, portraits of horses and wild animals, his first dramatic subjects on the theme of a horse attacked by a lion, and conversation pieces mostly including horses. 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 reassessment has lifted him to the level of the greatest of his time.