Sawrey Gilpin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sawrey Gilpin (1733-1807) was an English animal painter.

Gilpin was born in Cumbria, the son Captain John Bernard Gilpin, a soldier and amateur artist. His elder brother William Gilpin was a clergyman, schoolmaster, and author of several influential works on picturesque scenery.

Apprenticed to the marine painter Samuel Scott of Covent Garden, Sawrey came to specialise in painting animals, particularly horses and dogs, which he sometimes added to backgrounds by other artists, including Philip Reinagle, George Barret and J. M. W. Turner. He was patronised by Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. Gilpin was Director and President of the Society of Artists, and a member of the Royal Academy from 1796.

Sawrey Gilpin married Elizabeth Broom; their son William Sawrey Gilpin also became an artist, and in later life a landscape gardener.

Works by Sawrey Gilpin are in the collections of the Courtauld Institute of Art, Tate Britain, and the Royal Academy in London and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.