ART AFICIONADO: George Stubbs

Tuesday, August 25, 2026

George Stubbs

Art Appreciation

George Stubbs was born on August 25, 1724 in Liverpool, Lancashire, England. He was the son of a currier who prepared leather. His formal artist education appears to have been limited; as a young man he briefly studied with the Lancashire painter Hamlet Winstanley but developed largely through independent observation and study.

Stubbs became fascinated by anatomy, an interest that would distinguish his work from that of other sporting painters. During the late 1740s, while living in York, he studied human anatomy and provided illustrations for physician John Burton's treatise on midwifery. After a brief trip to Italy, he conducted detailed dissections of horses in Lincolnshire, carefully recording their bones, muscles and physical structure.

Around 1758, Stubbs moved to London, where his anatomical knowledge quickly attracted wealthy patrons involved in horse racing and breeding, including members of the emerging Jockey Club. His painstaking studies culminated in the publication of The Anatomy of the Horse in 1766, a landmark series of engravings that demonstrated both scientific precision and artistic skill.

Stubbs became particularly sought after for portraits of racehorses, hunters, mares and foals, often accompanied by their owners, jockeys or groomers. Yet his range extended beyond horses; he painted dogs, lions, monkeys, zebras and other exotic animals, as well as portraits, rural scenes and conversation pieces. Among his notable works are Zebra (1763), Mares and Foals in a River Landscape (c. 1763-68), A Lion Attacking a Horse (1762), Pumpkin with a Stable-lad (1774) and Reapers (1795).

Stubbs is now regarded as one of the great British painters of the 18th century and arguably its most important animal painter. During his lifetime, however, sporting painting occupied a lower position in the academic hierarchy of art, contributing to his exclusion from full membership in the Royal Academy.

His masterpiece, Whistlejacket (1762), demonstrates why his reputation has grown. The monumental painting presents the Marquess of Rockingham's chestnut stallion rearing against a plain background, without rider, saddle or landscape to distract from the animal itself.