John Fitzgerald with Lester Piggot and his portrait of the maestro.

Kilcloon artist exhibiting at Cheltenham Festival

The Cheltenham Festival will be home to Kilcloon equine and sporting artist, John Fitzgerald, this week. This will be John's first time to exhibit at the festival, and will put him in front of 70,000 race goers each day.

"I was really excited when I got accepted into he Cheltenham Festival," he says "It’s a difficult place to get into and the standard of exhibitors is very high each year, but when I got the email a number of weeks ago to see if I would come, I immediately accepted their offer." John is not fully sure but, he may be the first Irish artist ever to exhibit at the festival, but certainly the first in many years. "I’m really pleased with the paintings I have  for the festival, of which, none have been shown on social media or anywhere in public, I want there to be more of an element of surprise with my work from now on."  John has carried out two significant centre pieces for this exhibition, one is a large portrait of one of Gordon Elliott’s festival bankers and the other painting is an Irish festival legend from 25 years ago. In addition to his paintings, John will also have his new horse racing themed silk scarves on sale, which he is doing in callobaration with Elaine Jenkins from The-Collections.ie. John will be exhibiting in the shopping village at Stand No 40.
John has carried out commissions for many leading horse owners and trainers, and has painted some of our top equine heroes as well as portraits of leading jockeys such as Lester Piggot and 20 times champion, AP McCoy.