George Wright

GEORGE WRIGHT (Yorkshire, England, 1860 - Seaford, England, 1944).
"Carriage."
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 29 x 45 cm; 37 x 53 cm (frame).
The painter George Wright is recognized as one of the most important sporting painters of his time. Perhaps best known for his hunting and training paintings, Wright was involved in several areas of equestrian art, including polo. He was part of a family of seven children, five of whom were professional artists, painters or illustrators. Details of his early working life are unknown, but it is known that like the rest of his family, he had no formal training in art and so had to learn as he progressed. Wright was known for painting hunting scenes, but also for his portraits of horses. In fact, he moved to Rugby - a town in the county of Warwickshire in the Midwest of England - in 1901 to create a series of polo paintings that, like Wright's work in general, are still prized by collectors today. George Wright's mastery of the equine genre is indisputable; perhaps because he was himself a keen hunter, his understanding of equine form and, in particular, the rhythm and movement of the horse contributed greatly to his precisely observed work. By contrast, Wright painted landscapes, either on his own or as in "The Steeplechase," in an impressionistic manner, giving sharp relief to the animal subject of the painting, further emphasizing the artist's observational skills. In addition to commercial galleries, Wright exhibited six times at the Walker Gallery and 33 times at the Royal Academy. Wright collaborated with his brother Gilbert Scott Wright in producing paintings of sporting and training scenes for calendars and other works.