Mullins, George

by Rebecca Minch

Mullins, George (d. 1775), painter, was a pupil of James Mannin (qv) at the Dublin Society school of landscape and ornament c.1756; nothing else is known of his early life. He later worked for Thomas Wyse (qv), painting trays and snuffboxes at his factory in Waterford. Returning to Dublin he married the proprietor of the Horseshoe and Magpie alehouse in Temple Bar, a popular haunt with many theatrical characters. It was from here he first exhibited at the Society of Artists in Dublin in 1765, when he sent three landscapes in oils. He continued to exhibit there each year until 1769. In May 1767 he was awarded a Dublin Society premium of ten guineas for ‘the best original landscape in oils’ and a further premium in June 1768 for a history painting.

By 1770 he had achieved a considerable reputation, which perhaps prompted his move to London in that year. By that time he had also produced work for Lord Charlemont (qv) to decorate his Casino at Marino. One of the paintings he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1770 was ‘View from the temple at Marino, in which is introduced the story of Diana and Acteon’. He gave his address as that of Robert Carver (qv), another notable Irish landscape painter produced by the Dublin Society schools. His paintings shown at the Royal Academy were favourably received, and surviving examples show the influence of the seventeenth-century Dutch painter Cornelius van Poelenburgh, whose work was to be found in many contemporary aristocratic collections as well as that of the British artist Richard Wilson (1713/14–82). He may have been the artist responsible for the ceiling decoration at Chirk Castle, north Wales. He is also of note for being the teacher of Thomas Roberts (qv), the greatest Irish landscape painter of the eighteenth century, on whom he exerted considerable influence in terms of his choice of style and subject matter. He died in England in 1775.