The second son of Robert Pollard and Ann Iley, this artist was born in Islington, and was tutored and guided by his father who, from quite early in his son’s life, desided that he should be encouraged to be a horse painter.
Tag: equestrian art
Born in London, Barraud, who was baptized at St. Mary’s Church, Lambeth on May 16th, was the brother of William.
Born in Blackfriars, Surrey, John Frederick senior was the son of Benjamin Herring (who was born in America under the British flag but was Dutch by descent).
George Stubbs was the greatest of English horse painter, a master whose work stands alone, and who has had a greater influence on sporting painting throughout the world than anyone else who has lived.
With Stubbs, Munnings is one of the two great masters of sporting art and much has been written about him.
Sporting artist Alfred Munnings loved horses, the English countryside and a good stiff drink. What he didn’t like was modern art.
Round-hoof’d, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, broad breast, full eye,
small head and nostril wide, high crest, short ears, straight legs and passing
strong, thin mane, thick mane, broad buttock, tender hide: look, what a horse
should have he did mot lack, save a proud rider on so proud a back.
Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis
Nothing is more marvelous than sitting at a little table in the gathering dusk in the Piazza di San Marco, the guest of the six golden-bronze horses prancing away-to paradise. Then you know you are in the presence of the most immaculately beautiful creatures on the earth.
In the different world of the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the wealthy had far more time to follow their pleasurable pursuits, not the least of which was hunting. Hunting men have always been, by the very nature of their sport, men of courage and character.