George Stubbs

George Stubbs (1724–1806) painted horses with a scientific precision that no artist before or since has matched. Born in Liverpool to a leather-dresser, he followed his father's trade until sixteen, then taught himself to paint with minimal formal training. As a teenager, he was already dissecting animals. Between 1745 and 1751, he studied human anatomy at York County Hospital, and his knowledge was good enough to illustrate a medical textbook on midwifery.

In 1756, Stubbs rented a farmhouse in Lincolnshire and spent eighteen months dissecting horses. He hung carcasses from the ceiling and peeled back layer after layer to understand the underlying anatomy. The results, published in 1766 as The Anatomy of the Horse, changed equine painting forever. Aristocratic patrons recognized that his work was more accurate than anything that came before. The Duke of Richmond commissioned three large pictures in 1759, and Stubbs's career took off. By 1763, he had patrons among multiple dukes and lords.

His masterpiece, Whistlejacket (c. 1762), shows a life-size chestnut thoroughbred rearing against a plain background. It's one of the most important British paintings of the eighteenth century and now hangs at the National Gallery in London. Stubbs also painted a celebrated series of lions attacking horses, early examples of Romanticism. Despite his achievements, the Royal Academy classified him as a mere "sporting painter" and denied him full membership. His works hang at the Tate Britain, the Yale Center for British Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.