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), Yale Center for British Art. At the time, his clientele included mainly local merchants and squires.
Ann Ford (later Mrs. Philip Thicknesse), 1760, Cincinnati Art Museum
Frances Browne, Mrs John Douglas (1746–1811), 1783–84, Waddesdon Manor
Girl with Pigs, 1781–82, Private Collection, was said by Sir Joshua Reynolds to be "the best picture he ever painted"
Portrait of Mrs Mary Graham (1777) Scottish National Gallery
The Artist's Daughters (c. 1759)
Cornard Wood, near Sudbury, Suffolk, (1748), National Gallery
Holywells Park, Ipswich, (c. 1748-50), Christchurch Mansion
Mr and Mrs Andrews, (c. 1750), National Gallery
Landscape with Stream and Weir, (c. 1750-53), Yale Center for British Art
Hilly Landscape with Figures Approaching a Bridge (c. 1763), watercolour, Yale Center for British Art
Road from Market, (c. 1767-68), Toledo Museum of Art
The Mall in St. James's Park, (1783), Frick Collection
Coastal Landscape with a Shepherd and His Flock, (c. 1783-84), Yale Center for British Art
The Harvest Wagon, (1784), Art Gallery of Ontario
The Market Cart, (1786), National Gallery
River Landscape, (undated), Yale Center for British Art