John Frederick Herring Snr

British 1795-1865

John Frederick Herring Snr was born in London, the son of an American-born merchant with Dutch heritage. In 1814, at the age of eighteen, he moved to Doncaster, where he began work as a night coachman and painter of inn signs and coach insignia. He loved drawing and horses from an early age.

As a young man, Herring spent his spare time painting portraits of horses to decorate inn walls, becoming known as the ‘artist coachman’. From 1840, Herring found success with a range of royal patrons, including the Duc d’Orleans (son of King Louis-Phillipe), HRH the Duchess of Kent and Queen Victoria, who remained a loyal patron for the rest of Herring’s life. Also, the gentry such as Charles Stanhope and the Hon. Edward Petre.

Herring exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1818 to 1865, at the British Institution from 1830 to 1865 and at the Society of British Artists from 1836 to 1852, where he became vice-president in 1842. All three of Herring's sons, John Frederick Jnr, Charles and Benjamin, became artists, while his two daughters, Ann and Emma, both married artists (the former married Harrison Weir). This led Herring to begin adding the suffix ‘SR’ to his signature.

A highly successful and prolific artist, Herring ranks with Sir Edwin Landseer as one of the most eminent animal painters of the mid-nineteenth century. He died at Meopham Park, Kent on 23rd September 1865.