Artists

Albert Clark painted from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th Century. He was a member of the large family of animal painters.

James Clark (op.c1858 -1909) was a provincial equestrian artist who also painted prize farm animals particularly pigs and cattle. He sometimes signed his work James Clark snr or James Clark & Son.

William Albert Clark (op. 1906 -1950) came from a large family of animal painters. His card reads ‘Studio – 51 Hanover Rd, South Tottenham Lane, London W. Gentlemen waited upon in any part of the country’

William Henry Davis (1783 -1864) was born in Chelsea and specialised in the portraiture of prize farm animals: among his many patrons were Lord rivers, The Earl of Ilchester and Lord Lynedock.

A.M Gauchi (op. 1848 -1880’s) was an animal painter and engraver. His father and brother were lithographers in London. He engraved many illustrations of Shorthorn cattle for the ‘Coates Herd Book’ from 1863 -1867. He also contributed one plate to ‘A comparative View of the English Racer and Saddle horse’ (1836) & engraved ‘The Age’ (of the coach) after the work by C.C.Henderson.

Thomas Weaver (1774 – 1843) was a Shropshire artist who specialised in the portraiture of prize farm animals. Among his early patrons was the famous animal breeder Thomas Coke of Holkham. He exhibited at the Royal Academy and also at the Acedemy in Liverpool where he died.

Richard Whitford was born in Evesham, Worcestershire in about 1821. In 1841 at the age of 19, he took instruction to become an excise officer becoming ‘Qualified for surveying Common Brewers, Victuallers, malsters, Soapers, Brickmakers, Papermakers, postmasters, Spirit dealers and Retailers.’ After being accused of embezzlement, he was dismissed from his job as an excise officer in 1848. He then took up animal portraiture, specialising in painting prize cattle, sheep and pigs, horses and dogs. He died in London in 1890. He lived for many years at Northleach in Glouctershire where many of his paintings were executed. Queen Victoria owned several of his paintings in her collection at Shaw Farm at Windsor; many of his paintings were inscribed ‘Animal Painter to the Queen’.

John Vine (1808 -1867), like so many itinerant artists of his day, received no formal training in art; nevertheless he built up a fine reputation for painting the horses, cattle and dogs of the Essex gentry and farmers. He was born and died in Colchester and exhibited a painting of a farmyard scene at the Suffolk Street Galleries in London in 1844.

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