Frederick Woodhouse (1820 - 1909)

Woodhouse was a sporting and livestock painter. Both his father, Samuel Woodhouse, and his uncle, John Thomas Woodhouse, were painters as was Frederick, although as a young man he spent some time in the Essex Yeomanry Cavalry and came to Victoria in 1858.

Woodhouse was soon successful as an equine artist. He was the pre-eminent sporting artist of his time and became best known for painting every Melbourne Cup winner for more than thirty years, from the first in 1861. During a long, successful and prolific career, he visited New South Wales, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia and documented much Australian racing and rural history. He worked mainly in oils, usually on canvas but quite often on board.