This year marks 300 years since the birth of George Stubbs, one of the world’s most revered horse artists who painted in the romanticism style. To celebrate his work, the county of North Lincolnshire in the UK is commissioning local artists to create horse artworks to be placed on a walking trail. This arts project is appropriately called Horsing Around and will feature ten life-size horses displayed in prominent locations, as well as ten miniature horses on the 300-acre grounds of Normanby Hall Country Park for the public to enjoy.
George Stubbs.
Stubbs was born in Liverpool, but had a strong connection to North Lincolnshire. The artist was fascinated by anatomy and published his ground-breaking illustrated book The Anatomy of the Horse in 1766. According to the Normanby Hall Rural Life Museum and Stable Yard, all the preliminary work – the physical dissecting and the illustrating of many horse carcasses in several stages of dissection – was done in the town of Horkstow, in North Lincolnshire. The original drawings are in the collection of the Royal Academy of Arts.
The British painter was self-taught and became a sought-after portraitist for English nobility, who hired him to paint their horses and dogs. Perhaps his most famous painting is Whistlejacket, a 1762 life-size portrait of a racehorse, which hangs in the National Gallery in London.
Once the interactive trail is finished, the local artists’ work will be auctioned off to benefit charity.
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