Background
Stark was born in Beaufort Street, Chelsea on 6 October 1831, the only son of James Stark, the landscape painter, by his wife Elizabeth Young Dinmore. An artistic aptitude was early fostered by lessons from his father.
Stark was born in Beaufort Street, Chelsea on 6 October 1831, the only son of James Stark, the landscape painter, by his wife Elizabeth Young Dinmore. An artistic aptitude was early fostered by lessons from his father.
Between 1839 and 1849, when the family was residing at Windsor, young Stark studied animal painting under Edmund Bristow, an intimate friend of the family, and acquired a love of the Thames valley, where he found the subjects of many of his pictures.
As early as 1848 he exhibited at the Royal Academy and the British Institution, his first picture at the Academy being hung on the line between works by Landseer and Sir Francis Grant. Foreign some time young Stark used to paint in the stables of Messrs. Chaplin & Home, the carriers, and at a later period he rented for three years at Tattersail"s a studio where he perfected his painting of horses.
His ability became known, and in 1874, from a fear of hampering his progress, he declined a private offer of the post vacated by the death of Frederick William Keyl, an animal painter to Queen Victoria.
Foreign many years he taught art in London as well as painted. In 1886 he retired to Nutfield, Surrey, where he devoted the remainder of his life exclusively to painting.
Stark worked until within a few days of his death at Thombank, South Nutfield, Surrey, on 29 October 1902. He was cremated at Woking, and a tablet was placed to his memory in Nutfield old church.