Editing Thomas Gainsborough (section)

===Bath===
[[File:Portrait of Ann Ford (Gainsborough).jpg|thumb|upright|''[[Portrait of Ann Ford]]'', 1760, [[Cincinnati Art Museum]]]]
[[File:The Blue Boy.jpg|thumb|upright|''[[The Blue Boy]]'' (1770). [[Huntington Library]], San Marino, California]]
In 1759, Gainsborough and his family moved to [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]], living at number 17 [[The Circus, Bath|The Circus]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Greenwood|first=Charles|title=Famous houses of the West Country|year=1977|publisher=Kingsmead Press|location=Bath|isbn=978-0-901571-87-8|pages=84–86}}</ref> There, he studied portraits by [[Anthony van Dyck|van Dyck]] and was eventually able to attract a fashionable clientele. Beginning with the [[Exhibition of 1761]] he sent work to the annual exhibition of the [[Society of Artists of Great Britain]] (of which he was one of the earliest members) at [[Spring Gardens]] in London. From 1769 he submitted works to the [[Royal Academy of Arts|Royal Academy]]'s [[Summer Exhibition|annual exhibitions]]. The exhibitions helped him enhance his reputation, and he was invited to become a founding member of the Royal Academy in 1769. His relationship with the academy was not an easy one and he stopped exhibiting his paintings in 1773.

Despite Gainsborough's increasing popularity and success in painting portraits for fashionable society, he expressed frustration during his Bath period at the demands of such work and that it prevented him from pursuing his preferred artistic interests. In a letter to a friend in the 1760s Gainsborough wrote: "I'm sick of Portraits and wish very much to take my [[Viol|Viol da Gamba]] and walk off to some sweet Village where I can paint Landskips [landscapes] and enjoy the fag End of Life in quietness and ease".<ref>Letter to William Jackson, from Bath, dated 4 June (but without the year), in M. Woodall (ed.), ''The Letters of Thomas Gainsborough'' (London, 1961), p. 115.</ref>  Of the men he had to deal with as patrons and admirers, and their pretensions, he wrote:<blockquote>... damn Gentlemen, there is not such a set of Enemies to a real artist in the world as they are, if not kept at a proper distance.  They think ... that they reward your merit by their Company & notice; but I ... know that they have but one part worth looking at, and that is their Purse; their Hearts are seldom near enough the right place to get a sight of it.<ref>Letter to William Jackson, from Bath, dated 2 September 1767, in M. Woodall (ed.), ''The Letters of Thomas Gainsborough'' (London, 1961), p. 101.</ref></blockquote>Gainsborough was so keen a viol da gamba player that he had at this stage five of the instruments, three made by Henry Jaye and two by [[Barak Norman]].<ref>Letter to William Jackson, from Bath, dated 4 June (but without the year), in M. Woodall (ed.), ''The Letters of Thomas Gainsborough'' (London, 1961), p. 115: "My comfort is, I have 5 Viols da Gamba, 3 Jayes and two Barak Normans."</ref>