Thomas Gainsborough facts for kids

Self-portrait, painted 1759

Thomas Gainsborough (14 May 1727 – 2 August 1788) was an 18th-century English portrait and landscape painter. He was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, England. He was the youngest son of John Gainsborough. When he was 13, he surprised his father by how well he drew with the pencil. Impressed, his father let him go to London to study art in 1740. In the 1740s, Gainsborough married Margaret Burr and began painting portraits more than landscapes. He had two daughters. In 1774, Gainsborough and his family moved to London. In 1780, he painted portraits of King George III. He died of cancer in London on 2 August 1788 at age 61 years.

In painting portraits he sometimes painted with brushes on sticks six feet long. This put him at the same distance from subject and canvas, set at right angles to each other.

Gallery

Landscape in Suffolk (1748)
Self-Portrait (1754)
Two Daughters with a Cat (c. 1759)
Sunset (1760)
The Artist`s Daughters, Molly and Peggy (1760)
Johann Christian Bach
The Harvest Wagon c. 1767
Lady in Blue (c. 1770)

Images for kids

Lady Lloyd and Her Son, Richard Savage Lloyd, of Hintlesham Hall, Suffolk (1745–46). At the time, his clientele included mainly local merchants and squires.
Ann Ford (later Mrs. Philip Thicknesse), 1760
The Blue Boy (1770). The Huntington, California.
Frances Browne, Mrs John Douglas (1746 - 1811), 1783-84 at Waddesdon Manor
His later pictures are characterized by a light palette and easy strokes. Portrait of Anne, Countess of Chesterfield, 1777–1778
Girl with Pigs, 1781–82, said by Sir Joshua Reynolds to be "the best picture he ever painted".
Margaret Burr (1728–1797), the artist's wife, c. early 1770s
The Artist's Daughters (c. 1759)
Thomas Gainsborough's Showbox, 1780s, Victoria & Albert Museum
Reproduction Showbox image.
Clayton Jones, 1745
Portrait of a Woman, 1750
The Painter`s Daughters Chasing a Butterfly (1756)
A Man Called Mr. Wood, the Dancing Master (1757)
Mary Little, Later Lady Carr
Portrait of the Composer Carl Friedrich Abel with his Viola da Gamba (c. 1765)
The lawyer Joshua Grigby III, 1760/1765
Sir Robert Clayton, ( 1769)
The Linley Sisters (1772)
The Gravenor Family (1775)
Gainsborough`s Daughter Mary (1777)
Portrait of James Christie (1778)
Colonel John Bullock (c. 1780)
An officer of the 4th Regiment of Foot (c. 1776–1780)
Lady in Blue (c. 1780)
Queen Charlotte
Madame Lebrun (1780)
Mrs. Sarah Siddons (1785)
Her Grace, Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (1787)
Mrs Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1787)
"Frances Browne, Mrs John Douglas" (1783-84)
River Landscape (undated)
Coastal Landscape with a Shepherd and His Flock
The Mall in St. James's Park
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Andrews (c. 1748–1750)
Hilly Landscape with Figures Approaching a Bridge (c. 1763), watercolour
Road from Market
Landscape with Stream and Weir