The first title in an exciting new series called Unicorn Icons, bringing out-of-print biographies and autobiographies of celebrated artists and key figures from the world of art back into print

Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88) was a prominent English portrait and landscape painter, and he became one of the founding members of the Royal Academy. Born in Sudbury, Suffolk, the youngest son of a wool manufacturer, Gainsborough left home at the age of twenty-three in order to study art in London. He set up his first practice in Ipswich in 1752; seven years later he moved to the newly fashionable spa town Bath before finally settling in London in 1774, where he lived until his death in 1788. Today, his paintings are still beloved, commanding significant attention in art markets around the world.

Originally published in 1915, this biography is still the most authoritative text on the life and career of Gainsborough. Back in print, it offers a new chance for readers and art collectors to get the full story of this key figure in eighteenth-century art.