Thomas Gainsborough

Self-portrait, painted 1759

Thomas Gainsborough (14 May 1727 – 2 August 1788) was an 18th-century English portrait and landscape painter. He was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, England. He was the youngest son of John Gainsborough. When he was 13, he surprised his father by how well he drew with the pencil. Impressed, his father let him go to London to study art in 1740. In the 1740s, Gainsborough married Margaret Burr and began painting portraits more than landscapes. He had two daughters. In 1774, Gainsborough and his family moved to London.^[1] In 1780, he painted portraits of King George III. He died of cancer in London on 2 August 1788 at age 61 years.

In painting portraits he sometimes painted with brushes on sticks six feet long.^[2]^[3] This put him at the same distance from subject and canvas, set at right angles to each other.^[4]

Gallery

Landscape in Suffolk (1748)
Self-Portrait (1754)
Two Daughters with a Cat (c. 1759)
Sunset (1760)
The Artist`s Daughters, Molly and Peggy (1760)
Johann Christian Bach
The Harvest Wagon c. 1767
Lady in Blue (c. 1770)

Thomas Gainsborough Media

Lady Lloyd and Her Son, Richard Savage Lloyd, of Hintlesham Hall, Suffolk (1745–46), Yale Center for British Art. At the time, his clientele included mainly local merchants and squires.
Ann Ford (later Mrs. Philip Thicknesse), 1760, Cincinnati Art Museum
The Blue Boy (1770). Huntington Library, San Marino, California
Frances Browne, Mrs John Douglas (1746–1811), 1783–84, Waddesdon Manor
Portrait of Anne, Countess of Chesterfield (1777–78), J. Paul Getty Museum. His later pictures are characterised by a light palette and easy strokes.
Girl with Pigs, 1781–82, Private Collection, was said by Sir Joshua Reynolds to be "the best picture he ever painted"
Portrait of Mrs Mary Graham (1777) Scottish National Gallery
Alice De Lancey Izard (between 1747 and 1788) Metropolitan Museum of Art
Margaret Burr (1728–1797), the artist's wife, c. early 1770s

References

↑ "Plaque #2 - Open Plaques". openplaques.org. Retrieved 23 October 2010.
↑ Cox, Michael (1997). Awful Art. Scholastic Children's Books. ISBN 0-590-19262-0.
↑ Hugh Chisholm, ed. (1910). The Encyclopædia Britannica. The Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information. Vol. 11. Encyclopædia Britannica. p. 389. Archive.org Page 389, second column, about 1/4 through the text.
↑ Campbell, Peter (28 November 2002). "LRB · Peter Campbell · At Tate Britain". lrb.co.uk 24 (23). http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n23/peter-campbell/at-tate-britain. Retrieved 26 October 2010.

Other websites

Media related to Thomas Gainsborough at Wikimedia Commons
Webmuseum Paris: Thomas Gainsborough
Victoria and Albert Museum collection Archived 2011-01-08 at the Wayback Machine
http://www.abcgallery.com/G/gainsborough/gainsborough.html Olga's Gallery
www.gac.culture.gov.uk/search/Artist.asp?maker_id=112361 Archived 2010-09-16 at the UK Government Web Archive
www.Thomas-Gainsborough.org 70 works by Thomas Gainsborough

[1] "Plaque #2 - Open Plaques". openplaques.org. Retrieved 23 October 2010.

[2] Cox, Michael (1997). Awful Art. Scholastic Children's Books. ISBN 0-590-19262-0.

[3] Hugh Chisholm, ed. (1910). The Encyclopædia Britannica. The Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information. Vol. 11. Encyclopædia Britannica. p. 389. Archive.org Page 389, second column, about 1/4 through the text.

[4] Campbell, Peter (28 November 2002). "LRB · Peter Campbell · At Tate Britain". lrb.co.uk 24 (23). http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n23/peter-campbell/at-tate-britain. Retrieved 26 October 2010.

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Persondata
Name	Gainsborough, Thomas
Alternative names
Short description	painter
Date of birth	14 May 1727
Place of birth	Sudbury, Suffolk, England
Date of death	2 August 1788
Place of death	London, England