(baptized May 14, 1727, Sudbury, Eng.
died Aug. 2, 1788, London) British painter.
At 13 he left his native Suffolk to study in London. By с 1750, back in Suffolk, he had established a reputation in portraiture and landscape painting. He painted landscapes for pleasure; portraiture was his profession. In 1759 he moved to the fashionable spa of Bath, where his works would be seen by a wider and wealthier public. In 1768 he became a founding member of the Royal Academy of Art. He developed an elegant, formal portrait style inspired by Anthony Van Dyck , whose influence can be seen in such portraits as his famous Blue Boy (1770). In 1774 he moved to London and became a favourite of the royal family, preferred above the official court painter, Joshua Reynolds . His love of landscape came from studying 17th-century Dutch artists and later Peter Paul Rubens , whose influence is evident in The Watering Place (1777). His output was prodigious; he produced many landscape drawings in various media, and in his later years he also created images of seascapes, pastoral subjects, and children.
The Morning Walk , oil on canvas by Thomas Gainsborough, 1785; in the ...
Courtesy of the trustees of the National Gallery, London