Stubbs & the Horse - Hardcover

Warner, Malcolm; Blake, Robin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300104723 ISBN 13: 9780300104721

Publisher: Kimbell Art Museum, 2004

Synopsis

A versatile genius whose oeuvre includes paintings, engravings, and detailed anatomical studies, George Stubbs (1724 1806) was fascinated by horses. This handsome book presents for the first time the wide range of his equine imagery, from refined portraits of racehorses to violent scenes of horses attacked by lions in the wild.

Taking full account of the associations and status of the noble horse” in eighteenth-century Britain and the colorful world of its devotees both high and low the authors examine Stubbs’s work from different points of view and offer many fresh interpretations. Malcolm Warner discusses how horses were regarded in Britain in Stubbs’s time, the unexpected connection between his horse-and-lion compositions and the creation of the English thoroughbred, and his classicism. Robin Blake examines the young Whig noblemen who were Stubbs’s first patrons, the grooms, jockeys, trainers, and other attendants who appear in his horse portraits, and his curious dealings with the Prince of Wales. The book also includes an essay by conservators Lance Mayer and Gay Myers on Stubbs’s experiments with wax and enamel.

For admirers of Stubbs’s art, eighteenth-century English painting, and horses, this book is an essential addition to their bookshelves.

About this title

About the Author:

Malcolm Warner, Senior Curator at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, is the author of several books, including The Victorians: British Painting, 1837-1901 and Millais: Portraits; Robin Blake is an independent scholar based in London and is the author of a forthcoming biography on Stubbs; Lance Mayer and Gay Myers are consulting conservators based at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, Connecticut.

From Booklist:

Some art history scholars regard George Stubbs as possibly the best painter of horses ever. The 200 images in this volume, the catalog to a current exhibition (now in Fort Worth; in Baltimore to mid-2005) of Stubbs' oeuvre, demonstrate the strength of the assertion. Stubbs flourished from the 1760s to the 1790s primarily on commissions from British landed aristocrats. As Warner and Blake note in their essays, Stubbs gained the nobility's attention with an extraordinary calling card: a set of anatomical drawings that Stubbs based on intense study of equine cadavers. Horses appear strikingly lifelike in his paintings, which, besides their representational quality, embody the beginning of a more humane attitude toward animals. The authors praise Stubbs' individuation of horses, which markedly distinguishes him from painters for whom horses functioned as background scenery or pedestals for generals, not worthwhile subjects in themselves. A worthy tribute to Stubbs' beautifully vibrant work. Gilbert Taylor
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About this edition

• Publisher: Kimbell Art Museum
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0300104723
• ISBN 13: 9780300104721
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 248