Lynwood Palmer

James Lynwood Palmer (1868–1941)[note 1] 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,[2] 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),[3] Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick (1861–1938) and King George V (1865–1936).

[2] In 1884, aged 17, Palmer left school without his parents blessing and emigrated to Canada, where he worked with horses on cattle ranches, as a hansom cab master and show jumper.

It established him as a major painter of racehorses, a relatively small field that included his friend Alfred Munnings, Emile Adam, Lionel Edwards and Raoul Millais.

[2] Palmer had a deserved reputation for his ability to treat lame horses, no doubt learnt as a result of his training as a cab master.

[2] Palmer's notoriety as an equine artist is largely based on his paintings of racehorses for an aristocratic, wealthy clientele that were united by wealth and interests.

One of Palmer's first major commissions for August Belmont II, now at The Schwarz Gallery in Philadelphia features a four-in-hand horse carriage being driven along Ocean Drive, Newport, Rhode Island.

Another major client Alfred Vanderbilt had moved to England by 1904 where he purchased fifty trotting horses, together with a team of carrige greys and two carriages which he based near Palmer at Kingsbury.

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).

Their movements are so alert, they are so full of nervous energy, that the artist has to have a hand like a streak of lightning to catch the pose while it lasts.

[2] His success as an artist was largely derived through his ability to infuse into his expert draughtsmanship his thorough and first-hand understanding of the characteristics of the animals he was painting.

[2] In his will Palmer left personal possessions including his riding crop and glasses to his housekeeper Mary Cox, which were sold at auction by Sotheby's on 1 November 2006.

[17] Palmer's studio became a dance hall and his house, "The White House", 28, Upper Sutton Lane,[17][18] 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"-[19] 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.