George Romney 1734-1802

The year 2002 marks the bicentenary of the death of George Romney, one of the key figures in British art in the late 18th century. A chief rival of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough - and for much of his career more fashionable than both - he was known both as a portraitist and as a draftsman. His countless studies for literary and mythological pictures, made in private moments but which he never had time to paint, are executed in a bold, spontaneous style that mark him as one of the first Romantics.