Thomas Gainsborough by Michael Rosenthal

A lack of portrait commissions - his main bread-and-butter - prompted a 1752 move to the larger city of Ipswich.

His training at St Martin’s Lane Academy, an art school run by the celebrated artist William Hogarth, influenced Gainsborough to look to contemporary life and nature for subjects, rather than conventional historic, literary and religious themes.įor three years after the death of the painter’s father the couple lived in Sudbury, where a number of woodsy, bucolic landscapes attest to Gainsborough’s developing skills and affinity for rural scenes. At age 13 he was sent to London to study art and then apprenticed with several painters. The lead curator was Michael Rosenthal, who teaches at England’s University of Warwick and contributed to the first rate, accompanying catalog.īorn in 1727 in Sudbury, East Anglia, Gainsborough was the last of nine children of a woolen merchant.

In illustrating the full range of the artist’s achievements, the curators have made it hard for viewers to choose a preference between noble, refined portraits and sumptuous rural landscapes.

With more than 60 paintings and 30 works on paper, this is the first comprehensive show of the artist’s work in more than 20 years and the first Gainsborough retrospective in this country. The exhibition is currently on view at The Museum of Fine Arts through September 14. It was on view at the Tate last fall and winter, before traveling to the National Gallery this spring. These qualities are handsomely showcased in “Thomas Gainsborough, 1717-1788,” an exhibition organized by Tate Britain in association with the National Gallery of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gainsborough was also highly competitive, held strong opinions on a variety of subjects and was an astute businessman. In his life and in his art he sought to project an image of effortless accomplishment, reflected in a virtuostic painting style and enormous personal charm. Thomas Gainsborough, surely the most enduringly popular of British painters, is widely admired for his graceful society portraits and his lush pastoral landscapes. Collection of Ipswich Borough Council Museums and Galleries. This work reflects an innovative approach to portraiture that Gainsborough would develop as his career unfolded. Collection of the Rijksmueseum, Amsterdam.Ī standout in the exhibition is the informal depiction of “William Wollaston,” circa 1758, showing the landowner as a gentleman holding his flute, with a sheet of music on his lap. Black chalk and stump and white chalk on buff paper.

Thomas Gainsborough by Michael Rosenthal