Whistlejacket Steals the Show: Stubbs at the National Gallery

Rearing against a bare golden background, with no rider, no saddle and no landscape, George Stubbs's life-size 'Whistlejacket' is one of the most startling images in British art. In 2026 the National Gallery built an exhibition around this beloved 18th-century masterpiece.

Stubbs knew horses better than almost any painter before or since — he dissected them, studied their anatomy for years, and rendered their muscle, sheen and spirit with uncanny truth. 'Whistlejacket' turns a racehorse into a monument.

The show celebrates a quintessentially British obsession — the horse — raised by Stubbs to the level of high art.

Image: “Whistlejacket by George Stubbs edit” — George Stubbs, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.