North Yorkshire based Pippa is an award winning member of the Society of Equestrian Artists and has been painting all animals professionally since graduating with a honours degree in 1995. She lives in North Yorkshire and enjoys painting in all mediums but most frequently in oils.
Painting has taken a back seat while her children have being growing up, although Pippa has produced a small number of works every year while juggling the ponies and family life. Having left the PKR Racing business & returning to her first career, 2025 will ultimately be more productive as she concentrates solely on painting as well as continuing to enjoy competing with her daughters and ponies, and managing their small pony breeding operation under the ‘Monivea’ prefix. She has really enjoyed competing again on her homebred stallion ‘Monivea Black Magic’ & achieved a lifelong dream to ride a winner at Horse of the Year Show in 2023. Although her daughters Izzy & Indy have mainly taken up the reins on ‘Merlin’ in 2024 and into 2025, she is not fully ready to hang her showing boots up yet and enjoys being the stand by jockey when school commitments get in the way.
Previously Pippa painted extensively, and both her Originals and Limited Editions continue to sell world wide. Famous names include ‘Denman’ , ‘Best Mate’ & ‘Cool Dawn’ – all Cheltenham Gold Cup winners, ‘Red Marauder’ Grand National winner and numerous leading show horses, ponies, Eventers & Show Jumpers. The Olympic dressage stallion, ‘Dutch Gold’ was a memorable commission in the world of dressage for Jennie Loristan-Clarke.
Being a show judge and having competed all her life, the Artist has a keen eye for detail and noticing the make and shape of each individual horse or pony she paints. She was honoured to judge the Coloured Horses & Pony finals herself at Horse of the Year Show in 2021.
‘Capturing the spirit and a true likeness of the subject’ is always the main objective, and her reputation has been built on this ability. Wether in oils or watercolours, from the smallest Jack Russell to the Countries finest Equine Stars, Philippa pays each subject the same attention to detail and gives all her customers the guarantee of only paying for the finished painting if 100% delighted with the result.
Highlights of Pippa’s artistic career to date include presenting HM the Queen in person with a painting of her two champion Highland ponies at Windsor Castle in 2004, a very special day which was made complete with a ride on Balmoral Jingle round the Castle grounds accompanied by Lizzie Briant on Balmoral Curlew. She was also thrilled that when auctioned, two of her racing originals realised impressive sums of money for charity, ‘Best Mate’ making £13,500 and ‘Sadler’s Wells’ £8,500. Philippa has painted many champions show horses and ponies in the UK and Australia- two notable HOYS Supreme Champions include the outstanding cob, ‘Hallmark’ and five times HOYS winner, ‘Thistledown Van Der Vaart.’
The Artist has a waiting list and welcomes your commission enquiries on pippakirby@icloud.com or (07711) 709876. For prices please visit the Price List page, and for further examples of her work, the Gallery page.
www.philippakirbyartist.com 