John Skeaping

British painter, graphic artist and sculptor John Skeaping received an Honorable Mention at the 1948 London Art Competitions in the category Painting, Graphic Arts, for his work Saddling Up, clearly identified by the illustration in the art catalog. Since all his submitted works are drawings and sketches, they are probably on the market under different titles. Skeaping studied at Goldsmith’s College of Art, the Central School of Arts and Crafts and the Royal Academy Schools. Skeaping married the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, although their marriage ended in 1933.

During World War II Skeaping was commissioned as an official war artist. After 1945 he lived in Mexico and later taught for some time at the Royal College of Art, and also exhibited widely. In 1959 he then moved to the French Camargue, where he spent the last decades of his life. Skeaping’s work concentrated on painting animals, in particular race horses, which he drew with an economy of line that caught the power of taut muscles and flowing manes of a galloping horse. Three of the best three known racehorses he sculptured were of the outstanding classic winners Mill Reef, Brigadier Gerard and Hyperion.