THOMAS BLINKS | THE SANCTUARY

Sale: Sotheby's, London, June 15, 1988, lot 138, illustrated 

Hyde Park Antiques, New York

Acquired from the above circa 1989

Born in northwest London, Thomas Blinks overcame his parent's objections to his pursuit of a career in art, as well as a fruitless apprenticeship with a tailor, to become one of the foremost painters of sporting and hunting pictures. He committed to his art, despite no formal training, and gleaned much from his time spent at Tattersalls, the largest auctioneer of race horses in the United Kingdom.

Blinks first exhibited at the Dudley Gallery in 1881, the Royal Society of British Artists in 1882, and then regularly at the Royal Academy from 1883 to 1910. He was celebrated for his scenes of hunting hounds, like The Sanctuary, which combined the artist's accuracy of observation with freedom of brushwork and a polished finish. Blinks' work is represented in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen; Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, and Preston Manor, Brighton.