Equestrian Painter Lucy Kemp-Welch (1869 -1958)

Best known for her illustrations of the book, “ Black Beauty”, a story about the life of a horse and the abuse it suffered, it is maybe not so well known that the artist Lucy Kemp – Welch spent her life creating powerful and heartfelt images of horses on a grand scale, which brought her success at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries but not the fame she deserved. 

In this talk Art historian Catherine Wallace includes the wide range of settings for these equestrian paintings and Kemp-Welch’s use of various techniques. Whether her subjects were at work ploughing the fields or hauling timber, being used to launch lifeboats, or pull guns and charge at the enemy on the battlefields, Kemp -Welch  painted horses on a scale and in a way that competed with and surpassed many of her male rivals.  Wallace looks at the challenges Kemp – Welch frequently faced as a female artist in an a traditionally male dominated subject area of art and compares their works.  This lecture also includes the paintings by some of the students taught by Kemp Welch when she ran the Bushey School of Art from 1906 – 1926 as well as  her  later paintings depicting the circus and race horses.

The Equestrian Painter Lucy Kemp-Welch (1869 -1958): From Black Beauty to War Horses

Thursday 30th October 6.00pm - 7:00pm

Cost: £13

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