Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, the son of a cloth merchant and was so inspired by his glorious, native East Anglian landscape that he moved to London, aged 14. Having learned all things arty from the ever-cheerful Monsieur Gravelot and established his own studio, word soon got round that young Gainsborough could fashion a mean makeover on all manner of malicious, mendacious and mildewed aristocratic mugs. In no time at all vain and venal toffs were flocking to his door to have him render them prettier, more charming and more honest than reality or genetics would permit.
So this is how he earned his bread but his true love really was 'landskips' and (despite some terminological pronunciation problems) he liked nothing better than to extol the glories of woods, farm carts and peasants, all too dim to realise that they were getting for free what the nobs were paying a fortune for.
Rather than sitting in draughty fields, Thomas preferred the comfort of his studio and, to this end, would create miniature landscape models using bits of stone, moss, wood (styrofoam offcuts etc). Meanwhile, back in the portrait studio, he would frequently elicit gasps of astonishment and admiration from pompous posers by suddenly whipping out his spectacularly long equipment i.e. the giant brushes which enabled him to stand back from subject and canvas whilst getting an overview of both.
Thomas was one of the few portraitists of his generation who didn't employ the services of a 'drapery painter' (much preferring Mac Quick Draw 3). After living in Ipswich, Sudbury and Bath but, finding that he was unable to exist without the convenience of the all-night tripe concession, he eventually returned to London where he is currently appearing as a patch of bun moss in Kew Churchyard.
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