Thomas Gainsborough

Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woollen goods, and his wife Mary, sister of the Reverend Humphry Burroughs. One of Gainsborough's brothers, Humphrey, is said to have invented the method of condensing steam in a separate vessel, which was of great service to James Watt; another brother, John, was known as Scheming Jack because of his passion for designing curiosities. The artist spent his childhood at what is now Gainsborough's House, on Gainsborough Street, Sudbury. He later resided there following the death of his father in 1748 and before his move to Ipswich. The building is now a house-museum dedicated to his life and art. As a boy he demonstrated impressive drawing and painting skills. At the age of ten he was painting heads and small landscapes, including a miniature self-portrait. Gainsborough left home in 1740 to study art in London, where he trained under engraver Hubert Gravelot but became associated with William Hogarth and his school. He assisted Francis Hayman in decorating the supper boxes at Vauxhall Gardens. ==Career==

Suffolk In 1746, Gainsborough married Margaret Burr, an illegitimate daughter of the 3rd Duke of Beaufort, who had settled a £200 annuity on her. The artist's work, then mostly consisting of landscape paintings, was not selling well. He returned to Sudbury in 1748–1749 and concentrated on painting portraits. While still in Suffolk, Gainsborough painted a portrait of The Rev. John Chafy Playing the Violoncello in a Landscape (c. 1750–1752; Tate Gallery, London). In 1752, he and his family, now including two daughters, Mary ("Molly", 1750–1826) and Margaret ("Peggy", 1751–1820), moved to Ipswich. Commissions for portraits increased, but his clients included mainly local merchants and squires. He had to borrow against his wife's annuity. now in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London. File:Margaret Burr (1728-1797), Mrs Thomas Gainsborough by Thomas Gainsborough.jpg|Margaret Burr (1728–1797), the artist's wife, early 1770s File:Thomas Gainsborough 024.jpg|Self-Portrait (1754) File:Thomas Gainsborough 017.jpg|''The Artist's Daughters'' () Bath '', 1760, Cincinnati Art Museum '' (1770). Huntington Library, San Marino, California In 1759, Gainsborough and his family moved to Bath, living at number 17 The Circus. There, he studied portraits by van Dyck and was eventually able to attract a fashionable clientele. Beginning with the Exhibition of 1761 he sent work to the annual exhibition of the Society of Artists of Great Britain (of which he was one of the earliest members) at Spring Gardens in London. From 1769 he submitted works to the Royal Academy's annual exhibitions. The exhibitions helped him enhance his reputation, and he was invited to become a founding member of the Royal Academy in 1769. His relationship with the academy was not an easy one and he stopped exhibiting his paintings in 1773. Despite Gainsborough's increasing popularity and success in painting portraits for fashionable society, he expressed frustration during his Bath period at the demands of such work and that it prevented him from pursuing his preferred artistic interests. In a letter to a friend in the 1760s Gainsborough wrote: "I'm sick of Portraits and wish very much to take my Viol da Gamba and walk off to some sweet Village where I can paint Landskips [landscapes] and enjoy the fag End of Life in quietness and ease". Of the men he had to deal with as patrons and admirers, and their pretensions, he wrote:... damn Gentlemen, there is not such a set of Enemies to a real artist in the world as they are, if not kept at a proper distance. They think ... that they reward your merit by their Company & notice; but I ... know that they have but one part worth looking at, and that is their Purse; their Hearts are seldom near enough the right place to get a sight of it.Gainsborough was so keen a viol da gamba player that he had at this stage five of the instruments, three made by Henry Jaye and two by Barak Norman. London In 1774, Gainsborough and his family moved to London to live in Schomberg House, Pall Mall. A commemorative blue plaque was put on the house in 1951. In 1777, he again began to exhibit his paintings at the Royal Academy, including portraits of contemporary celebrities, such as the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland. Exhibitions of his work continued for the next six years. About this time, Gainsborough began experimenting with printmaking using the then-novel techniques of aquatint and soft-ground etching. '' (1777–78), J. Paul Getty Museum. His later pictures are characterised by a light palette and easy strokes. During the 1770s and 1780s Gainsborough developed a type of portrait in which he integrated the sitter into the landscape. An example of this is his portrait of Frances Browne, Mrs John Douglas (1746–1811) which can be seen at Waddesdon Manor. The sitter has withdrawn to a secluded and overgrown corner of a garden to read a letter, her pose recalling the traditional representation of Melancholy. Gainsborough emphasised the relationship between Mrs Douglas and her environment by painting the clouds behind her and the drapery billowing across her lap with similar silvery violet tones and fluid brushstrokes. This portrait was included in his first private exhibition at Schomberg House in 1784. In 1776, Gainsborough painted a portrait of Johann Christian Bach, the youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach's former teacher Padre Martini of Bologna, Italy, was assembling a collection of portraits of musicians, and Bach asked Gainsborough to paint his portrait as part of this collection. Gainsborough did not particularly enjoy reading but letters written to his friends were penned in such an exceptional conversational manner that the style could not be equalled. As a letter writer Henry Bate-Dudley said of him "a selection of his letters would offer the world as much originality and beauty as is ever traced in his paintings". In the 1780s, Gainsborough used a device he called a "Showbox" to compose landscapes and display them backlit on glass. The original box is on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum with a reproduction transparency. He died of cancer on 2 August 1788 at the age of 61. According to his daughter Peggy, his last words were "van Dyck". He is interred in the churchyard St Anne's Church, Kew, Surrey, (located on Kew Green). It was his express wish to be buried near his friend Joshua Kirby. Later his wife and nephew Gainsborough Dupont were interred with him. Coincidentally Johan Zoffany and Franz Bauer are also buried in the graveyard. In 2011, an appeal was given to pay the costs of restoration of his tomb, and the tomb was restored in 2012. A street in Kew, Gainsborough Road, is named after him. ==Technique==

'' (1777) Scottish National Gallery '' (1767) (between 1747 and 1788) Metropolitan Museum of Art His more famous works, The Blue Boy; Mr and Mrs Andrews; Portrait of Mrs Mary Graham; ''Mary and Margaret: The Painter's Daughters; William Hallett and His Wife Elizabeth, nee Stephen, known as The Morning Walk; and Cottage Girl with Dog and Pitcher'', display the unique individuality of his subjects. His rival, Joshua Reynolds wrote that the painting Girl with Pigs was "the best picture he (Gainsborough) ever painted or perhaps ever will". Gainsborough's works became popular with collectors from the 1850s on, after Lionel de Rothschild began buying his portraits. The rapid rise in the value of pictures by Gainsborough and also by Reynolds in the mid 19th century was partly because the Rothschild family, including Ferdinand de Rothschild began collecting them. In 2011, Gainsborough's portrait of Miss Read (Mrs Frances Villebois) was sold by Michael Pearson, 4th Viscount Cowdray, for a record price of £6.54M, at Christie's in London. She was a matrilineal descendant of Cecily Neville, Duchess of York. ==Popular culture==

• Gainsborough's portrait The Blue Boy is shown in the 1988 comedy movie The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! in the office of the antagonist, Vincent Ludwig. • Gainsborough's The Blue Boy is also referenced in a 1995 episode of Keeping Up Appearances with Hyacinth Bucket stating at country house estate sale that she was "looking for something like Gainsborough's Blue Boy...only cheaper...". • Cecil Beaton's play ''Gainsborough's Girls'' is set in London in 1774 when the painter moved his family to the capital. Previously unpublished, it received its first performance in Sudbury, Suffolk in 2019, followed by a short run at the Tower Theatre, London. • Simon Edge's comic novel A Right Royal Face-Off focuses on Gainsborough's relationship with King George III and his family, and his rivalry with Joshua Reynolds. • Stanley Kubrick was inspired by Gainsborough's paintings, amongst other artists of the 18th century, in creating the look and mannerisms for his 1975 film Barry Lyndon. • Gainsborough's portrait The Morning Walk (Portrait of Mr and Mrs William Hallett) is clearly visible over actor Daniel Craig's shoulder during a scene in the 2012 James Bond film Skyfall set in the National Gallery. • Gainsborough (played by Cecil Kellaway) performs a vital role in the 1945 film Kitty; saving the eponymous heroine from prison sets the plot, based on Pygmalion, in motion. • Gainsborough's portrait The Gravenor Family was cut and pasted into the sleeve of the 1983 Electric Light Orchestra album Secret Messages. • Gainsborough's portrait Cornard Wood, near Sudbury, Suffolk is referenced in the first season of the 2024 Netflix show The Gentlemen. • The CSS extended color Gainsboro (hex value #DCDCDC) is attributed to ''Gainsborough's use of similar light tones''. ==Gallery==

File:Thomas Gainsborough - Clayton Jones - Google Art Project.jpg|Clayton Jones (1745), Yale Center for British Art File:Thomas Gainsborough - Conversation in a Park - WGA8400.jpg|Conversation in a Park (1746), Louvre File:Thomas Gainsborough - Portrait of a Woman - Google Art Project.jpg|Portrait of a Woman (1750), Yale Center for British Art File:Thomas Gainsborough - Portrait of John Plampin (1752).jpg|Portrait of John Plampin (1752), National Gallery File:Edward Vernon by Thomas Gainsborough.jpg|Portrait of Edward Vernon (1753), National Portrait Gallery File:Thomas Gainsborough - The Gravenor Family - Google Art Project.jpg|The Gravenor Family (1754), Yale Center for British Art File:File-Gainsborough - The Painters Daughters Chasing a ButterflyHD.jpg|''The Painter's Daughters Chasing a Butterfly'' (1756), National Gallery File:Thomas Gainsborough - A Man Called Mr. Wood, the Dancing Master - Google Art Project.jpg|A Man Called Mr. Wood, the Dancing Master (1757), Yale Center for British Art File:Thomas Gainsborough - Mary Little, Later Lady Carr - Google Art Project.jpg|Mary Little, Later Lady Carr (), Yale Center for British Art File:Portrait of the Artist's Daughters, probably early 1760s, by Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) - IMG 7281.JPG|''Portrait of the Artist's Daughters'', 1763–64 Worcester Art Museum File:Portrait of Richard Howe. Gainsborough.png|Portrait of Richard Howe, (1763), Kenwood House File:Thomas Gainsborough - Mary, Countess of Howe - WGA08407.jpg|Portrait of Countess Howe, (1764), Kenwood House File:Karl Friedrich Abel by Thomas Gainsborough.jpg|Portrait of the Composer Carl Friedrich Abel with his Viola da Gamba (), National Portrait Gallery File:Theodosia Meade, Countess of Clanwilliam, (Miss Hawkins-Magill), by Thomas Gainsborough, 50 x 40 inches.jpg|Theodosia Meade, Countess of Clanwilliam (Miss Hawkins-Magill), 1765 File:Thomas Gainsborough - Portrait of Joshua Grigby.jpg|The lawyer Joshua Grigby III (1760/1765), File:Portrait of Francis Bennett by Thomas Gainsborough.jpg|Portrait of Francis Bennett (1766), private collection File:Mrs Edmund Morton Pleydell, by Thomas Gainsborough-18th-century-fashion.jpg|Mrs Edmund Morton Pleydell c. 1765 File:Gainsborough - Elizabeth Montagu, Duchess of Buccleuch (1743-827).jpg|Lady Elizabeth Montagu, Duchess of Buccleuch and Queensberry (), Boughton House File:Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) - Commodore, Later Vice-Admiral, The Honourable Augustus Hervey (1724–1779), 3rd Earl of Bristol - 851720 - National Trust.jpg|Portrait of Augustus Hervey (1767), Ickworth House File:Ignatius Sancho, 1768.jpg|Portrait of Ignatius Sancho (1768), National Gallery of Canada File:Thomas Gainsborough - Sir Robert Clayton - Google Art Project.jpg|Sir Robert Clayton (1769), Walker Art Gallery File:David Garrick by Thomas Gainsborough.jpg|Portrait of David Garrick (1770), National Portrait Gallery, London File:Maria, Lady Eardley (1743-1794) (Thomas Gainsborough) - Nationalmuseum - 22943.tif|Maria, Lady Eardley () Nationalmuseum File:Thomas Gainsborough - William Johnstone-Pulteney, Later 5th Baronet - Google Art Project.jpg|Portrait of Sir William Pulteney (1772), Yale Center for British Art File:Gainsborough, Thomas - Elizabeth and Mary Linley - Google Art Project.jpg|The Linley Sisters (1772), Dulwich Picture Gallery File:Johann Christian Bach by Thomas Gainsborough.jpg|Portrait of Johann Christian Bach (1776), National Portrait Gallery, London File:Captain John Stanley.jpg|Captain John Stanley, in a 20th Regiment of Foot uniform, collection of Mary, Viscountess Eccles(1776) File:Thomas Gainsborough 012.jpg|Portrait of Mary Gainsborough (1777), Tate Britain File:The Hon. Mrs. Thomas Graham.jpg|The Hon. Mrs. Thomas "Mary" Graham (–77), National Gallery of Art File:Thomas Gainsborough - The Honourable Mrs Graham (1757 - 1792) - Google Art Project.jpg|Portrait of Mrs Mary Graham (1777), Scottish National Gallery (wearing Jacobean inspired gown) File:The Hon. Frances Duncombe - Gainsborough c. 1777.jpg|The Hon. Frances Duncombe (c. 1777) File:Gainsborough - Grace Dalrymple Elliott.jpg|Mrs. Grace Dalrymple Elliott (1778), Metropolitan Museum of Art File:Thomas gainsborough, sir henry bate-dudley, 1780 ca. 01 (cropped).jpg|Sir Henry Bate-Dudley (1780) File:Thomas Gainsborough (English - Portrait of James Christie (1730 - 1803) - Google Art Project.jpg|Portrait of James Christie (1778), J. Paul Getty Museum File:Gainsborough, Thomas - Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg - Google Art Project.jpg|Portrait of Philip James de Loutherbourg (1778), Dulwich Picture Gallery File:Portrait of Margaret Gainsborough - Thomas Gainsborough.jpg|Portrait of Margaret Gainsborough (1778), Courtauld Gallery File:Colonel John Bullock.jpg|Colonel John Bullock (), Blanton Museum of Art File:Thomas Gainsborough - An officer of the 4th Regiment of Foot - Google Art Project.jpg|An officer of the 4th Regiment of Foot (–1780), National Gallery of Victoria File:Thomas Gainsborough - Portrait of a Lady in Blue - WGA8414.jpg|Woman in Blue (), Hermitage Museum File:Thomas Gainsborough - Madame Lebrun - Google Art Project.jpg|Madame Lebrun (1780), Art Gallery of South Australia File:Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst.jpg|Portrait of Jeffery Amherst, 1780 File:Henryseymour.jpg|Portrait of Henry Seymour Conway, 1780 File:Queen Charlotte - Gainsborough 1781.jpg|Portrait of Queen Charlotte () Royal Collection File:Giovanna Baccelli (Gainsborough).jpg|Portrait of Giovanna Baccelli (), Tate Britain File:John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich.jpg|Portrait of the Earl of Sandwich (1783), National Maritime Museum File:Admiral of the White by Thomas Gainsborough.jpg|Portrait of Admiral Rodney (1783), Private Collection File:Lord Cornwallis.jpg|Portrait of Lord Cornwallis (1783), National Portrait Gallery File:Thomas Gainsborough - Francis Rawdon.jpg|Portrait of Lord Rawdon, 1784, São Paulo Museum of Art File:Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) - John Hobart (1723–1793), 2nd Earl of Buckinghamshire - 355541 - National Trust.jpg|Portrait of the Earl of Buckinghamshire (1784), Blickling Hall File:Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88) - The Three Eldest Princesses, Charlotte, Princess Royal (1766-1828), Augusta (1768-1840) and Elizabeth (1770-1840) - RCIN 400206 - Royal Collection.jpg|The Three Eldest Princesses (1784) File:Thomas Gainsborough 015.jpg|Portrait of Sarah Siddons (1785), National Gallery File:Thomas Gainsborough - Mr and Mrs William Hallett ('The Morning Walk') - WGA8418.jpg|The Morning Walk (1785), National Gallery File:Thomas Gainsborough 005.jpg|The Cottage Girl (1785), National Gallery of Ireland File:Lady Sheffield by Gainsborough.jpg|Portrait of Sophia Charlotte Digby, Lady Sheffield, (–86), Waddesdon Manor File:Thomas Gainsborough - The Marsham Children - Google Art Project.jpg|The Marsham Children (1787), File:Thomas Gainsborough Lady Georgiana Cavendish.jpg|Portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (1787), Chatsworth House File:Thomas Gainsborough - Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan .jpg|Mrs Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1787), National Gallery of Art File:Cornard Wood.png|Cornard Wood, near Sudbury, Suffolk (1748), National Gallery File:Thomas Gainsborough - Landscape in Suffolk - Google Art Project.jpg|Landscape in Suffolk (1748), Kunsthistorisches Museum File:Thomas Gainsborough - Holywells Park, Ipswich.jpg|Holywells Park, Ipswich (–50), Christchurch Mansion File:Thomas Gainsborough - Mr and Mrs Andrews.jpg|Mr and Mrs Andrews (), National Gallery File:Thomas Gainsborough - Landscape with Stream and Weir - Google Art Project.jpg|Landscape with Stream and Weir (–53), Yale Center for British Art File:Thomas Gainsborough - Hilly Landscape with Figures Approaching a Bridge - Google Art Project.jpg|Hilly Landscape with Figures Approaching a Bridge (), watercolour, Yale Center for British Art File:Thomas Gainsborough - Road from Market - Google Art Project.jpg|Road from Market (–68), Toledo Museum of Art File:Thomas Gainsborough - The Mall in St. James's Park - Google Art Project.jpg|''The Mall in St. James's Park'' (1783), Frick Collection File:Thomas Gainsborough - Coastal Landscape with a Shepherd and His Flock - Google Art Project.jpg|Coastal Landscape with a Shepherd and His Flock (–84), Yale Center for British Art File:Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) - Romantic Landscape with Sheep at a Spring - 03-1396 - Royal Academy of Arts.jpg|Romantic Landscape with Sheep at a Spring (1783), Royal Academy of Arts File:Gainsborough-HarvestWagon1784.jpg|The Harvest Wagon (1784), Art Gallery of Ontario File:Thomas Gainsborough 002.jpg|The Market Cart (1786), National Gallery File:Thomas Gainsborough - Cattle Watering by a Stream - Google Art Project.jpg|River Landscape (undated), Yale Center for British Art ==See also==