James Lynwood Palmer

Golden Corn, a racehorse owned by Marshall Field III (1893–1956), grandson and heir of Palmer's early patron Marshall Field I (1834–1906). Painted by Palmer in 1922 Lord Annaly, Master of the Pytchley Hunt. Portrait of Luke White, 3rd Baron Annaly (1857–1922), Master of the Pytchley Hunt 1902–1914, by Lynwood Palmer Ambrose Clark and favourite coach horse. Portrait of F. Ambrose Clark (1880–1964), American equestrian, by Lynwood Palmer

James Lynwood Palmer (1868–1941) was an English painter who specialised in painting race-horses, his characteristic style showing them as nervous and highly-strung, often depicted within a background of a dramatic landscape. His success as a leading equestrian portrait painter of the first half of the twentieth century is represented by around eight hundred paintings that were commissioned by clients, almost exclusively from private patrons, who included: William Cavendish-Bentinck, 6th Duke of Portland (1857–1943) (notably The Duke of Portland's stallions at Welbeck Stud ) (1900), Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick (1861–1938) and King George V (1865–1936). He rarely exhibited his work to the public.

Origins He was born in 1868 at Market Rasen in Lincolnshire, the third son and the youngest of eight children of George Thomas Palmer (1836–1908) and Anna Frances Blair. His father, schooled in Bath, graduate of Peterhouse, Cambridge, was a career clergyman. Specifically he was vicar of Linwood, Lincolnshire from 1861 to 1869, an urban parish priest, then honorary canon of Rochester Cathedral (1890 to 1908). His older brother Charles Jasper was also an ordained minister.

The first public success in his artistic career was perhaps that which came through the illustrations of an American catalogue of a sale of horses. The drawings received great praise and resulted in a number of commissions.

Palmer spent some years in the 1890s supplementing his artistic income in employment as a cab master. At this time Palmer showed great interest in carriage driving which led to commissions from Alfred Vanderbilt and Ambrose Clark and an increasing number of commissions for private clients and periodicals that included The American Carriage Monthly (1893) Although he had no formal training he developed an affinity for drawing and painting horses of all types: hunting, carriage, or race horses. He remained in North America for 11 years and found patrons who admired his style of painting and bought his works, including Marshall Field I (1834–1906), the American entrepreneur, prominent racehorse owner and founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores.

In 1895 Palmer returned to Europe with a nucleus of work to his credit, mostly from anglophile Americans Subsequently, some trainers would seek Palmer's advice. In his latter years he frequented Hounslow Barracks, the regimental mess of the 17/21 Lancers where his advice was sought and given. Palmer was also a judge at the International Horse Show at Olympia in 1921 but had been involved in its organisation since its inception in 1907. He designed a series of publicity postcards in pre-war years. The style always puts the horse at the centre of the painting , occasionally with a jockey and groom but usually within a featureless landscape. Other carriage-themed paintings for Ambrose Clark and Lady Warwick were commissioned. One of his most important patrons of the interwar years was Lord Woolavington, a collector of English sporting paintings for whom Palmer produced two, of carriage horses (and several racehorses besides).

Technique Lynwood Palmer possessed a retentive visual memory for the appearance of a horse. His use of colour was limited and he did not shirk applying colours directly to the canvas to produce the iridescent sheen which are a feature of his paintings. Palmer's figures are often one-dimensional. an impressionist painter of the period, did some of the figures in these paintings. In 1925 Lynwood Palmer was painted by Talmage seated astride a carriage. The painting is in private hands.

Lynwood Palmer primarily strove to convey the nervous, highly strung character of a Thoroughbred horse painted within a dramatic and harmonious landscape. He remained within the tradition of racehorse artists influenced by predecessors : Harry Hall, John Frederick Herring Sr. and his son John Frederick Herring Jr, James Ward. Palmer's studio became a dance hall and his house, "The White House", 28, Upper Sutton Lane, noted in the Victoria County History of Middlesex to be "timber-framed and contains 16th-century features, including an original roof", later "cased with brickwork" and given "several additions and alterations"- was acquired from its subsequent owners by the Council under a compulsory purchase order, then destroyed in an arson attack which cleared the way for construction of the residential Palmer Close, which stands on the site today.

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