The Frick Collection
George Stubbs (1724 - 1806): A Celebration
 
Exhibitions: George Stubbs (1724–1806): A Celebration
 

Chronology

1724 Born in Liverpool to a family of curriers (leather workers).
1745 – 53

Studies and teaches human anatomy in York.

1754 Visits Rome.
1756 – 58 Dissects horses at a farmhouse in Lincolnshire, assisted by Mary Spencer, his future spouse.
1757 Edmund Burke publishes the Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful.
1758 Moves to London.
1759 – 62 Paints sporting and animal pictures for aristocratic patrons.
1761 Shows his first painting at the Society of Artists exhibition in London; exhibits regularly with them.
1766 Publication of The Anatomy of the Horse; elected director of the Society of Artists.
1768 Foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, a breakaway institution from and rival of the Society of Artists.
1772 Elected president of the Society of Artists.
1775 Begins association with Josiah Wedgwood to create enameled paintings on earthenware; exhibits at the Royal Academy for the first time.
1781 Elected Royal Academician.
1782 Exhibits five enamel paintings at the Royal Academy; they are poorly displayed, causing a four-year estrangement.
1786

Returns to the Royal Academy and exhibits the Haymakers and Reapers.

1795 Begins work on drawings for his Comparative Anatomical Exposition of the Structure of the Human Body with That of a Tiger and a Common Fowl.
1797 Ozias Humphry records Stubbs’s memoirs.
1803 Exhibits at the Royal Academy for the last time.
1804 First plates of the Comparative Anatomy issued.
1806 Dies at home in London at age eighty-one.

Major funding for George Stubbs (1724–1806): A Celebration has been provided by The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation. Corporate support has been provided by Fiduciary Trust Company International. Generous support has also been provided by Francis Finlay, Melvin R. Seiden in honor of Colin B. Bailey, and by the Fellows of The Frick Collection.

This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities.