Gainsborough

** Selected as a Book of the Year in The Times Sunday Times and Observer **

'Compulsively readable - the pages seem to turn themselves' John Carey Sunday Times
'Brings one of the very greatest [artists] vividly to life' Literary Review

Thomas Gainsborough lived as if electricity shot through his sinews and crackled at his finger ends. He was a gentle and empathetic family man but had a shockingly loose libidinous manner and a volatility that could lead him to slash his paintings.

James Hamilton reveals the artist in his many contexts: the talented Suffolk lad transported to the heights of fashion; the rake-on-the-make in London learning his craft in the shadow of Hogarth; the society-portrait painter in Bath and London who earned huge sums by charming the right people into his studio. With fresh insights into original sources Gainsborough: A Portrait transforms our understanding of this fascinating man and enlightens the century that bore him.