George Stubbs, Otho, with John Larkin up 1768. Tate.
17 rooms in Historic and Early Modern British Art
Two artists, born three centuries apart, combine anatomy and expression in their portraits of racehorses
2024 marks 300 years since the birth of the animal painter George Stubbs. Today he is celebrated as one of Britain’s greatest horse painters. This display brings together paintings by Stubbs with a contemporary horse painting by Mark Wallinger.
Stubbs’s representation of horses marked a milestone in animal and sporting painting. Rather than horses appearing as a supporting character or accessory to the sitter, he made them the focus of his paintings. Stubbs elevated animal painting in the eighteenth-century visual hierarchy of painting that privileged idealised scenes from antiquity, modern history, mythology and literature. He was devoted to understanding the physical structure of horses, from the hide to the muscles, arteries, tendons, and down to the bone. By studying the anatomy of horses, Stubbs achieved unprecedented realism in his images.
Stubbs was highly in demand as a horse painter. He was commissioned by wealthy aristocratic landowners who raced and bred horses. Stubbs’s association with social class, power and the notion of national identity has influenced Wallinger’s artistic practice. Wallinger says, ‘[Stubbs] uncovered the structures of the creatures he depicted as well as understanding the structures of power and patronage he worked with as an artist.’
George Stubbs, Otho, with John Larkin up 1768
This painting shows a winning thoroughbred racehorse called Otho. He is pictured at Newmarket racecourse where he had his greatest successes. Otho’s powerful frame highlights the slenderness of the jockey, John Larkin. Dramatic and poetic elements, such as the moody sky and tension of Otho’s pricked ears, elevate Stubbs’s painting above conventional equine portraiture. Stubbs was commissioned to paint this work a year after Otho’s racing career ended and he retired to stud. This describes a horse that no longer races but is kept for breeding the next generation of race horses.
Gallery label, September 2024
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artworks in Stubbs and Wallinger
Mark Wallinger, Half-Brother (Exit to Nowhere - Machiavellian) 1994–5
The two horses that make up this painting were derived from photographs in the official record of Thoroughbred stallions. ‘Half-Brother’ is a racing term that denotes horses that have the same mother. The brood mare Coup de Folie was the dam (mother) of the colts depicted here. They are direct descendants of Eclipse, painted by Stubbs. Wallinger says, ‘There is also something of Consequences here – both the game [where players draw separate parts of a body] and the very notion of “good breeding”. Plus, in a bathetic undertone, the painting suggests the two participants that make up a pantomime horse.’
Gallery label, September 2024
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artworks in Stubbs and Wallinger
George Stubbs, Horse Attacked by a Lion 1769
This is the second in a sequence of three in Stubbs‘s horse and lion series. In the first, a horse rears back at the sight of an approaching lion. In this, the second, the lion pounces on the petrified horse. Stubbs minimises the landscape and cuts off the corners of the canvas to emphasise the action and horror of the scene. The third in the sequence shows the lion bringing the horse to its knees. Stubbs produced the series in a range of formats and techniques. It is Stubbs’s earliest known attempt at painting in enamel colour pigments – a technique previously limited to decorative objects. Unlike oil paint, enamel doesn’t fade.
Gallery label, September 2024
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artworks in Stubbs and Wallinger
George Stubbs, Bay Hunter by a Lake 1787
This horse is identified as a ‘bay’– a horse characterised by a reddish-brown coat with black colouring on the mane, tail, ear edges and lower legs. Its ears are cropped and its tail docked, in accordance with 18th-century fashion. Stubbs’s earlier horse portraits usually showed the animal accompanied by a groom, stable boy, jockey or owner. However, in many later works, including this one, the horse is shown alone. The body of water in the background in this work is typical of Stubbs’s sublime landscapes in the 1780s and 90s.
Gallery label, September 2024
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artworks in Stubbs and Wallinger
George Stubbs, A Grey Hunter with a Groom and a Greyhound at Creswell Crags c.1762–4
A grey horse stands in front of Creswell Crags, a picturesque limestone gorge on the border of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. The horse has a stocky build and short legs, making it suited to clambering over rocks and moorland to follow the greyhound. The horse is likely to belong to a nobleperson, but is shown here in the presence of a groom or hunt servant. This person would have been responsible for cleaning the stables and caring for the horses.
Gallery label, September 2024
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artworks in Stubbs and Wallinger
Art in this room
George Stubbs
Otho, with John Larkin up
1768
Mark Wallinger
Half-Brother (Exit to Nowhere - Machiavellian)
1994–5
George Stubbs
Horse Attacked by a Lion
1769
George Stubbs
Bay Hunter by a Lake
1787
George Stubbs
A Grey Hunter with a Groom and a Greyhound at Creswell Crags
c.1762–4