John Skeaping Hand Numbered Limited Edition Print on Paper :"Full Stretch"
Title: Full Stretch
Dimensions (W x H ): Paper Size: 24 x 20 in | Image Size: 20 x 16 in
Edition | Medium: Each print is hand numbered, accompanied by a certificate signed by the Master Printer and is numbered to match the print. The editions are limited to 1880 copies. |
This Gouttelette print on paper is published with light-fast inks to BS1006 Standard onto acid-free calcium carbonate buffered stock, mould-made from 100% cotton and sourced from environmentally conscious paper suppliers. This product is exclusive to Rosenstiels.
About the Art: Superior Edition
About the Artist:
John Skeaping is regarded as the leading equine sculptor of the century. He also became a prolific racehorse painter in his middle age.
Born in South Woodford, Essex, in 1901, his father was a portrait painter who shared a studio with Cézanne and his mother a music teacher. He had an unconventional childhood as one of four children, none of whom were sent to school. His father believed in a basic training in the arts and they were therefore taken to exhibitions, concerts, theatre and ballet. Aged 13, John Skeaping enrolled at Blackheath School of Art. Aged 14 he went to Goldsmiths College in the Sculpture School. From there he went to the Central School of Arts & Crafts and then to the Royal Academy Schools, where he won the Royal Academy Gold Medal and travelling scholarship.
He then taught in Newcastle. In 1924 he won the Prix de Rome and went to Rome on a three year scholarship. Barbara Hepworth won the second prize and they met in Rome and married there in 1925. The couple returned to London and four years later were divorced. During the 1930s, Skeaping spent as much time as possible in the countryside with his second wife, whom he married in 1934. They were lent a cottage in Dartmoor where they stayed for a summer and started to train and race greyhounds.
At the beginning of the Second World War, Skeaping joined the Intelligence Corps and later transferred to the SAS. However, he began to suffer from nervous stomach trouble and was invalided out just before the end of the war. On his return to civilian life he became disillusioned with London, so went to Devon to live. He only stayed for a while in Devon before returning for a short period of teaching at the Royal College of Art. He then went to Mexico for a year and a half, living amongst the primitive Indians.
On his return to England, he became Professor of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art. He became an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1951 and was elected to full membership in 1959. In 1959 he moved to Provence, close to the Carmargue, where he studied the wild horses of the Carmargue. He lived there for 20 years with his third wife.
John Skeaping received numerous commissions during his life from, amongst others, Lord Derby, Paul Mellon and John Hislop. His commission for Lord Derby for the horse Hyperion involved him working from the horse's skeleton, as the horse had died six months before he gained the commission. He held regular exhibitions at Ackermans in London and he wrote an autobiography entitled Drawn From Life.
Skeaping died in 1980.
