Preserving, sharing and promoting the literature, art and culture of equestrian and field sports.

2013 Library Exhibitions

Sir Alfred J. Munnings in Print: Unpublished Letters and Drawings, April 21- August 1, 2013

Intersection: Field Sports and the Evolution of Conservation, August 30 - March 1, 2013 Read more Read about Thomas E. Lovejoy. Read about the exhibit in Middleburg Eccentric, December 2012

2013 Museum Exhibitions

Munnings: Out in the Open, April 24 – September 15, 2013
The Open-Air Works of Alfred Munnings (English, 1878 – 1959) Over fifty masterworks by the renowned English artist, Sir Alfred James Munnings, (1878 – 1959), offer a cross-section of the artist’s open-air works painted throughout his career. While he is best known for his equine compositions, a more complete representation of his varied subjects will be presented, including: vibrant scenes of gypsy life, rolling landscapes of the English countryside and bucolic images of livestock. Several works created between 1912 and 1914 are highlighted as they relate to Summer in February, a novel about Munnings’ time in an artist colony written by Jonathan Smith in 1996. The exhibition includes works from important private collectors and public institutions such as: the Sir Alfred Munnings Art Museum in Dedham, England; The Yale Center for British Arts in New Haven, Connecticut; the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, in Saratoga, New York; and Pebble Hill Plantation in Thomasville, Georgia. There is a fully illustrated catalog. Read more. The Jockey Club Web site

An Artist's Story: Civil War Drawings by Edwin Forbes, March 15 – June 24, 2013
Like thousands of young men, twenty-three year- old John Edwin Forbes went to war in 1862—but he did not shoulder a rifle or carry a saber. The classically trained Forbes joined a group of artists and reporters, known collectively as the Bohemian Brigade, sent south by northern newspapers to feed a home front population hungry for information about the war and the men engaged in it. For two and a half years Forbes documented the Union and Confederate armies—in camp, on the march and in battle. Accompanied by Forbes’s own descriptions, this exhibition features original pen-and-ink drawings based on his wartime sketches and used to illustrate his memoir, Thirty Years After: An Artist’s Story of the Great War (1890). All of these images are part of a collection of 156 drawings donated to the Virginia Historical Society in 2008 by the William R. Berkley family. This traveling exhibition was organized by the Virginia Historical Society.

Sporting Pastimes: Art & Objects of Leisure, January 23 – July 2013
Highlights from the permanent collection celebrate the country way of life and turf and field sports with a survey of angling, shooting, coaching, foxhunting, steeplechasing, and horse racing. An examination of English, American, and French vintage and antique objects relating to these pastimes reveals utilitarian articles as well as fine and decorative art. The objects in this exhibition span hundreds of years, yet remain just as relevant to turf and field sport enthusiasts today as they were when they were first created.

Abbott Handerson Thayer: A Beautiful Law of Nature, February 1 - May 26, 2013
Works by the early American naturalist painter Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849-1921) highlight the artist’s observations of nature and his correlating discovery of early camouflage concepts, which were implemented by the Allied countries during World War I. Included are landscapes, animal studies, and early camouflage designs for military uniforms and navy vessels. Selected from the artist's family archives, most of these paintings and drawings have never been exhibited. A catalog accompanies the show, edited by Ari Post with essays by renowned scholars William Kloss, Martin Stevens and Roy Behrens. This exhibit was organized by Gold Leaf Studios in Washington, D.C., and is sponsored by Blair Inc. and the Family and Estate of Abbott Handerson Thayer. Read more. Follow Roy Behrens' bolg.

Nic Fiddian-Green (British, b. 1963), Still Water, 2011
Hammered lead sculpture with copper rivets on an oak base, 9 feet, 10 feet 2 inches including base.
Limited edition no. 1 of 5. This dramatic work is on exhibit in the Museum entrance. Read more

Recent

Bob Kuhn: Drawing on Instinct, October 12, 2012 – March 31, 2013
A life-long student of drawing, the late great wildlife artist Bob Kuhn left behind more than 5,000 studies in his studio after his death in 2007. The National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, has organized a traveling retrospective of his drawings and paintings. Read more.

NSLM Loan Exhibit
Washington Winter Show, Sporting Pastimes: Art & Objects of Leisure, January 11-13, 2013.Click here for more information. See Fox News video. See catalog.

2012 Museum Exhibitions

The Wildlife Paintings of Bruno Liljefors (Swedish, 1860 – 1939), February 4 – March 15, 2012
This exhibition is a collection of paintings by the Swedish artist Bruno Liljefors that depict grand, sweeping, and innovative scenes of the dance of predator and prey. Liljefors had a vision that was ahead of his time, foreshadowing a movement that would reach its heyday a half a century later. Many would follow but Liljefors was altogether without peers. “I paint animal portraits,” he said, modestly. Read more.

Nic Fiddian-Green (British, b. 1963), Still Water, 2011
Hammered lead sculpture with copper rivets on an oak base, 9 feet, 10 feet 2 inches including base. Limited edition no. 1 of 5. This dramatic work is on exhibit in the Museum entrance through May. Read more.

Scraps: British Sporting Drawings from the Paul Mellon Collection at the VMFA, Richmond, April 6 – June 30, 2012
This exhibition takes its title from Henry Alken’s series of drawings and prints that depict varied and often-humorous episodes of sporting and country life. Unlike the more formal, traditional scenes represented in commissioned paintings, these works allowed artists to indulge a personal vision of animals, sport and country pursuits they encountered and observed directly. Read more.

Cool Down at the NSLM – Three Summer Exhibitions. Read more.

Endangered Species,June 6 – December 30, 2012
This exhibition of the work of con­temporary Washington, D.C. art­ist Kay Jackson is comprised of twenty contemplative gold-leaf panel paintings and boxes. Read more.

Framing Animal and  Sporting Art, June 6 – December 30, 2012
Guest-curated by frame conservator and historian William Adair, this exhibition will examine typical frames that were used by eighteenth through twentieth century English and American sporting artists. There are three special events: “Frame Day,” June 9; “Framing: the Good the Bad and the Ugly,” October 6; and “Gild a Frame the Traditional Way, November 10, 2012.Read more.

Chukkers: the Sport of Polo in Art, July 12 – September 30, 2012
Curated by the NSLM and researched by Daniels Fellow H.A. Laffaye with loans from the Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame, Chukkers will explore the game and its history with over fifty paintings and watercolors, twenty sculptures and medals, and a selection of antique trophies. This exhibition will be open during the Polo lecture and panel discussion on September 22, and the Polo Cup Fundraiser on September 23, 2012. Read more.

Bob Kuhn: Drawing on Instinct, October 1, 2012 – February 28, 2013
A life-long student of drawing, the late great wildlife artist Bob Kuhn left behind more than 5,000 studies in his studio after his death in 2007. The National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, has organized a traveling retrospective of his drawings and paintings. There are two related special events that are free and open to the public: Saturday, October 13, 11:00 a.m.,  a gallery tour led by exhibition curator Adam Harris and on Friday, October 19, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m., an Evening at the Museum open house. Read more.

 NSLM Loan Exhibit, Washington Winter Show, Sporting Pastimes: Art & Objects of Leisure, January 11-13, 2013. This exhibit may be seen at the Washington Winter Show.Click here for more information. See the catalog.

Inaugural Exhibition

Afield in America: 400 Years of Animal and Sporting Art,  opened at the National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg, Virginia, on October 11, 2011 and is on exhibit through January 14, 2012. This inaugural exhibition in the new Museum is designed to raise awareness of the importance of animal and sporting art as a reflection of American history and cultural life. Over one hundred outstanding works of fine art representing every category of the genre have been selected to show how American animal and sporting artists developed a unique national style reflective of the diversity of our people, the rich variety of our wildlife, and the breadth of our national landscape. Paintings and sculpture have been drawn from the NSLM’s permanent holdings, as well as from private collections, museums, and other institutions throughout the United States.

Designed to attract the widest possible audience, Afield in America presents works by iconic American artists such as Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Eakins, Alfred Jacob Miller, and Frederic Remington, as well as those by recognized masters of the animal and sporting art genre, including John James Audubon, Paul Manship, Edward Troye, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, and William Tylee Ranney.

The works of other fine American sporting artists, which have long been esteemed by enthusiasts of the genre, but until recently were often overlooked by art historians, are an important focus of the exhibition. This group includes: William Herbert Dunton, Herbert Haseltine, Thomas Hewes Hinckley, Anna Hyatt Huntington, Alexander Pope, Ogden Pleissner, Percival Rosseau, and John Martin Tracy.

An illustrated, color catalogue accompanies the exhibition; critical essays explore larger interpretations of these works with the objective of defining the remarkable role animal and sporting artists have played in the history of American art. Essayists include: William H. Gerdts, Ph.D, art historian and author of Art Across America; Adam D. Harris, Ph.D, Curator of the National Museum of Wildlife Art and author of Wildlife in American Art; Daniel J. Herman, Ph.D, historian and author of Hunting and the American Imagination; F. Turner Reuter, Jr., Curator of Afield in America and author of Animal and Sporting Artists in America; and Robin R. Salmon, author and Vice President for Collections and Curator of Sculpture, Brookgreen Gardens.

Afield in America catalog
Order 540-687-6542, hreuter@nsl.org

Catalog cover: William Tylee Ranney, On the Wing., 1850. Private collection.

Book cover: Detail of Thomas Hewes Hinckley's Day's Bag: Gun Dogs and Game, 1846.
Animal and Sporting Artists in America book
Order 540-687-6542, hreuter@nsl.org