James Lynwood PALMER
1868–1941, England
Palmer was born in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, England, the third son of a clergyman who later became Canon of Rochester Cathedral. He studied at King's College in London, England, but was self-taught as an artist. Under family pressure to enter the legal profession or the diplomatic corps, he left home in 1885 for Canada, where he worked on ranches and as a horse handler for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He sketched his surroundings, becoming proficient at drawing horses while acquiring expertise in diseases and injuries of the equine foot. While he was transporting horses to the United States his sketches came to the attention of an American general, who then sponsored the beginning of his artistic career. Over the next several years he established himself in New York and New York City as an equestrian painter, meeting with enough success that he was quickly able to support himself with his brushes and paints.
In 1899 Palmer returned to England, where he painted much of his best-known work. He settled in Heston, Middlesex, England. He counted among his English patrons the Countess of Warwick, the Duke of Portland, King Edward VII, and King George V. Palmer was one of a number of English animal and sporting painters and sculptors who visited and lived in the United States in the first half of the 20th century by invitation of American patrons who commissioned portraits of their pets, sporting dogs, hunting and racing horses and prized livestock. Some of these artists include, among others, Ruben Binks (qv), William Smithson Broadhead (qv), Richard John Monroe Dupont (qv), Maud Earl (qv), Peter Howell (qv), Thomas Sherwood La Fon'aine (qv), Michael Lyne (qv), Sir Alfred James Munnings, John Rattenbury Skeaping, and Martin Stainforth (qv). Among Palmer's best known American supporters were John Hay "Jock" Whitney and F. Ambrose Clark, who amassed a substantial collection of sporting art and commissioned a number of paintings from Palmer. Many of these works were illustrated in his book The F. Ambrose Clark Collection of Sporting Paintings, printed in 1958 for his friends, including F. Ambrose Clark Driving Tandem of 1928; F. Ambrose Clark Driving His Four-in-Hand; F. Ambrose Clark with a Favorite Coach Horse; George "Pete" Bostwick on his First Winner "Beauparc" at Whitemarsh Hunt Meeting of 1928; "Kellsboro Jack" with F. Ambrose Clark, Owner of 1933; and The Late Mrs. F. Ambrose Clark (side saddle) on Her Hunter, Ragtime. Other examples of his American work are his 1904 oil of the Lima Hunt at Walnut Hill Orchards in Chester Heights, PA, and the thoroughbred portrait of the steeplechasers Easter Hero and Stablemate Sir Lindsay on the Gallops, commissioned by John Hay Whitney in 1930.
His work is in the collection of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, NY.
Palmer died in Heston, Middlesex, England, in 1941.
Source: http://www.redfoxfineart.com