thumb|[[George II at the Battle of Dettingen, 1743]]
thumb|[[A View of Henley-on-Thames, 1743]]
thumb|The [[Duke of Hamilton's Grey Racehorse, 'Victorious,' at Newmarket, c. 1725]]
John Wootton ( – 13 November 1764) was an English painter of sporting subjects, battle scenes and landscapes, and illustrator.
Life
Born in Snitterfield, Warwickshire (near Stratford-upon-Avon), he is best remembered as a pioneer in the painting of sporting subjects – together with Peter Tillemans and James Seymour – and was considered the finest practitioner of the genre in his day.
He is now somewhat eclipsed in the field of animal paintings by the later George Stubbs (1724–1806), who is considered technically superior. John Wootton died in London on 13 November 1764. Examples of his animal painting can be found in the Tate Gallery, London, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, the Yale Center for British Art, in the Elizabethan Great Hall at Longleat and in The Portland Collection at the Harley Gallery and Foundation.
thumb|Frederick, Prince of Wales in the Hunting Field, 1734
thumb|The Siege of Lille, 1742
See also
- British art
- English school of painting
- List of British artists
Further reading
Arline J. Meyer, 'Wootton, John (1681/2–1764)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/29965]