George Earl

George Earl was a well-known painter, primarily of sporting dogs, horses and other animals. He was the patriarch of a family of artists which included his brother, Thomas Earl, his daughter, Maud Earl, and his son from a second marriage, Percy Earl – all animal artists.  Maud Earl became one of the best known of all dog painters, eventually emigrating to America, as did her stepbrother, Percy Earl.

Earl was a keen sportsman which reflected in his work and reputation as a dog painter. He was an early member of The Kennel Club and painted a series of studies of dogs’ heads, for members of the club, entitled Champion Dogs of England, ca. 1870 – these works were illustrated in a book of the same name.

Earl was predominantly known as a canine artist due to his success in depicting them, but of the nineteen paintings George Earl exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1857 and 1882 only two were of dogs. His most prominent works were The Field Trial Meeting – The painting is a composition picture of a mystical field trial set in Bala, North Wales, in which Earl illustrated many of the important people associated with field trials and the early Kennel Club, portraying over thirty Pointers and Setters and over eighty people: owners, handlers, trainers, dog show judges, breeders and writers about dogs. One such dog was ‘Plunkett’, the only Irish Setter depicted.

Going North and Coming South were two monumental paintings commissioned by Sir Andrew Barclay Walker of the Walker Brewery which were completed in 1893. These paintings are bustling narrative works depicting railway station life. Now these paintings are in the collection of the National Railway Museum in York, England (they were rescued in 1990 from a Liverpool pub (The Vines in Lime Street)). Going North tells the story of a group of friends traveling from Kings Cross to Scotland for the summer grouse shooting season. The companion work Coming South shows the same group a month later at Perth Station, about to make their return journey. The works show much of the minutiae of Victorian station life and include Earl’s trademark sporting interests in the form of dogs and grouse. The Carlisle Otter Hounds, Striking the Foil – a huge and magnificent work of 20 dogs, including Bugleman, a famous hound in his days, and the entire Carlisle hunt in pursuit. It took George Earl 1 ½ year to complete this work. It was purchased by Mr. Hermanus Koekkoek, a well-known artist in his own right, who displayed this large-scale painting at his Gallery on Piccadily, London where he charged a shilling to view the work.

George Earl exhibited regularly in London at the Royal Academy, the British Institution and Suffolk Street between 1857 and 1883. He left a large body of works both in public and private collections around the world.