Stubbs was born in Liverpool and until his mid-teens worked with his father who was a currier and leatherseller. There is more going on in Stubbs' paintings than the simple representation of animals in landscapes. But that Stubbs was more than just a horse painter is clear today from the range of his artistic production images of labor, leisure, conflict, terror, and death. These images of an arcadian eighteenth century world, of man and nature in peaceful co-existence, have gained in symbolic importance as the transgressions of man upon his environment in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have become more apparent. Stubbs, the Horse Painter.' (1) His reputation rested on his skill in representing beautifully painted animals, especially horses, in pleasing and harmonious relationships with each other, with their human riders and handlers, and with the natural landscape (Pl 1, Pl 2). Through the 1950s his paintings were relatively inexpensive, and his reputation was simply that of a proficient animal painter he was even referred to in his own time as 'Mr. For many years, George Stubbs (1724-1806) was not considered a major painter.
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