What is Thomas Gainsborough?
[[File:Thomas Gainsborough by Thomas Gainsborough.jpg|thumb|250px|Self-portrait, painted 1759]] '''Thomas Gainsborough''' (14 May 1727 – 2 August 1788) was an 18th-century [[English people|English]] [[portrait]] and [[landscape]] [[Painting|painter]]. He was born in [[Sudbury, Suffolk|Sudbury]], [[Suffolk]], England. He was the youngest son of John Gainsborough. When he was 13, he surprised his father by how well he drew with the pencil. Impressed, his father let him go to [[London]] to study art in 1740. In the 1740s, Gainsborough married Margaret Burr and began painting portraits more than landscapes. He had two daughters. In 1774, Gainsborough and his family moved to London.<ref>{{Cite web |url= http://openplaques.org/plaques/2 |title=Plaque #2 - Open Plaques |work=openplaques.org |accessdate=23 October 2010 }}</ref> In 1780, he painted portraits of King [[George III of the United Kingdom|George III]]. He died of [[cancer]] in London on 2 August 1788 at age 61 years. In painting portraits he sometimes painted with [[brush]]es on sticks six feet long.<ref>{{cite book|last=Cox|first=Michael|title=Awful Art|url=https://archive.org/details/awfulart0000coxm|year=1997|publisher=Scholastic Children's Books|isbn=0-590-19262-0}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The Encyclopædia Britannica|editor=Hugh Chisholm|publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica|date=1910|series=The Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information|volume=11|pages=389}} [https://archive.org/stream/encyclopaediabrit11chisrich#page/n9/mode/2up Archive.org] Page 389, second column, about 1/4 through the text.</ref> This put him at the same distance from subject and canvas, set at right angles to each other.<ref>{{Cite magazine |url= http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n23/peter-campbell/at-tate-britain |title=LRB · Peter Campbell · At Tate Britain |work=lrb.co.uk |date=28 November 2002 |volume=24 |issue=23 |accessdate=26 October 2010 |last1=Campbell |first1=Peter }}</ref> == Gallery == <gallery> Image:Thomas Gainsboro