Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788)is acknowledged as one of the masters of eighteenth-century art, and the inventiveness of his techniques and the complexity of his art remain dazzling today. This catalogue, published to accompany a major international exhibition covering Gainsborough's entire career, presents an artist whose work is enormously visually engaging and diverse, yet also intellectually vibrant and rewarding.

At a time of increasing tensions in the British art world,Gainsborough's art provided a vital alternative to the theory-led practice of the new Royal Academy. In their essay, Michael Rosenthal and Martin Myrone explore Gainsborough's dynamic involvement with the social world of his day, as he endeavored to forge an art that engaged meaningfully with the diverse nature of contemporary life. Martin Pestle and Rica Jones examine the development of Gainsborough's technique and studio practice, from his early works painted in Sudbury, Suffolk,to the grand studio and gallery at Schomberg House,London, where he spent his final years.

The astonishing range of works illustrated here fully demonstrates the originality of Gainsborough's art. The paintings Gainsborough chose for display in the newly emerging exhibition venues of London are grouped together, providing a valuable insight into how he wished his career and art to be understood. Other sections explore his precocious early work, his subtle approach to the lucrative world of fashionable portraiture, his diverse representations of the burgeoning ideals of Sensibility, the often pointed social commentary behind his seductive landscapes, and the exploratory nature of his last works.

This catalogue provides new and refreshing insights into Gainsborough as an artist who succeeded in creating an experimental and modern art for his own time, and whose works retain a continuing significance today.

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Thomas Gainsborough: Art, Society, Sociability

Michael Rosenthal and Martin Myrone

Gainsborough in his Painting Room

Rica Jones and Martin Pestle

Catalogue

Beginnings: The Early Years

Gainsborough in the Public Eye: The Exhibition Works

Portraiture and Fashion

Sensibility

Landscape and the Poor

Ideal and Experimental Art: The Later Years

Chronology

Louise Hayward

Abbreviations and Selected Bibliography

List of Works

Lenders and Credits

Index