Thomas Gainsborough facts for kids
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
Images for kids
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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.
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Ann Ford (later Mrs. Philip Thicknesse), 1760, Cincinnati Art Museum
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Frances Browne, Mrs John Douglas (1746–1811), 1783–84, Waddesdon Manor
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Holywells Park, Ipswich, (c. 1748-50), Christchurch Mansion
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Road from Market, (c. 1767-68), Toledo Museum of Art
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The Mall in St. James's Park, (1783), Frick Collection
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The Harvest Wagon, (1784), Art Gallery of Ontario