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

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.

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.

Bob Kuhn: Drawing on Instinct, October 1, 2012 – February 28, 2013

About the Museum

The new Museum is a venue for exhibitions which preserve, share and promote the art, literature and culture of equestrian and field sports. Visitors are welcomed through the doors of the renovated and expanded 1804 historic house to view and enjoy sporting art in an inviting setting much like the houses for which these works of art were originally commissioned. While primarily a research center, the Library is open to the public. An historic building, Vine Hill, also located on the campus, was once occupied by the Library. Vine Hill has been renovated and expanded to house the new art Museum. Read more.

The Museum is a venue for exhibitions which preserve, share and promote the art, literature and culture of equestrian and field sports.  Visitors are welcomed through the doors of the renovated and expanded 1804 historic house to view and enjoy sporting art in an inviting setting much like the houses for which these works of art were originally commissioned.

The inaugural exhibition for the new Museum was Afield in America: 400 Years of Animal & Sporting Art 1585-1985, curated by F. Turner Reuter, Jr., and based on his book Animal and Sporting Artists in America which was published by the National Sporting Library in 2008. A second edition was printed in 2011.The inaugural exhibition in the new Museum was intended to raise awareness of the importance of animal and sporting art as a reflection of American history and cultural life. Afield in America