Stubbs: Portrait of a Horse

© National Gallery

Stubbs: Portrait of a Horse

12 March 2026 to 31 May 2026

Ended

A focused show on Stubbs’s “Scrub,” with paintings and works on paper showing how his anatomical studies reshaped equine portraiture in 18th-century British art.

From National Gallery

A monumental painting of a rearing horse will go on display this spring, in a new National Gallery exhibition devoted to George Stubbs (1724–1806). The only life-size horse portrait by Stubbs still in a private collection, and only once before seen on public display, 'Scrub, a bay horse belonging to the Marquess of Rockingham' (about 1762) will be joined in the exhibition by other paintings and works on paper by the artist....

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Critic Reviews (2)

The Guardian

Jonathan Jones

This magnificent nag deserves a longer canter

"George Stubbs is a true British great who deserves as many exhibitions as Constable and Turner, and many more than Blake – but he still gets dismissed as a “sporting artist” or seen as a stooge of the aristocracy, his radical vision going above our heads, and the best the National Gallery can afford him is one room. I loved everything in it. But he deserves so much more and we do too, for this artist could change the world if we all saw with his eyes."

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The Times

Laura Freeman

this artist was no one-trick pony

"A display case of Stubbs’s anatomical drawings are ghostly and strange. Here are spectral stallions, every, nerve, tendon and sinew turned inside out. More of these, please, and less of the tidy parade-ground pictures on the opposite wall."

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About the Artist

Visit

Trafalgar Square, London·View on artmap

Sunday10am–6pm

Monday10am–6pm

Tuesday10am–6pm

Wednesday10am–6pm

Thursday10am–6pm

Friday10am–9pm

Saturday10am–6pm

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