Madeleine Bunbury’s paintings are rooted in the longstanding tradition of equine art, encompassing centuries of practice from George Stubbs to Edgar Degas. Her work adds a significant contemporary contribution to this important history. She cites Stubbs, the distinguished eighteenth-century artist celebrated for his monumental life-size portraits of horses, as her greatest inspiration. Guided by this legacy, Bunbury undertook classical training at the prestigious Charles Cecil Studios in Florence, Italy, where she spent three years mastering the sight-size method and painting from life under natural light. Reflecting on her practice, Bunbury shares, “I concentrate on painting horses life-size in a traditional style, from life, using my own hand-ground paints and hand-stretched canvases. I feel this style helps me to achieve an expressive representation that is unparalleled by modern photorealistic paintings.”

Raised on the Caribbean island of Mustique, Bunbury became an accomplished equestrian, developing an authentic connection with horses that amplifies her ability to portray, with exceptional sensitivity, the physical and emotional characteristics of each individual horse. Bunbury begins her compositions with sketches from life, capturing the way natural light defines the horse’s powerful presence and shimmers across its coat. She brings these observational pieces back to her studio to reference as she paints the final work.

Bunbury’s skill in representing not only the physical form but also the essence of each horse has gained her an international following, with recent commissions across the U.K., the United States, and Italy. Her projects have taken her as far afield as Argentina, India, Pakistan, and throughout Europe. Notable commissions include paintings for HM Queen Elizabeth II, Prince William, the Sultan of Oman, and HH The Maharaja of Jaipur. Recently, the National Sporting Library and Museum, Middleburg, VA, presented Madeleine Bunbury: Modern Classic, a solo exhibition of her paintings, which were on view through March 2026. After three years as the National Sporting Library and Museum’s artist in residence, Bunbury now lives and works in Wiltshire, UK.