Equestrian Sports and Oil Paintings: A Traditional Partnership

Details: Art; By Linda Volrath

Volrath_BundledattheRaces_FHL Bundled at the Races by Linda Volrath, oilPainting is a poetic visual language. One of the most satisfying aspects of creating my paintings is using this language to translate a fleeting moment in a tangible and permanent way.

I’m endlessly inspired and fascinated by the thrilling sports of steeplechase racing and foxhunting and the beautiful countryside that encompasses them. Incredible sights, sounds, and events unfold. Jockeys and grooms, athletic horses, hounds, and wildlife all have their role to play. I see my job as an artist to be the visual storyteller. The passion I have for these equine traditions and rural way of life seems perfectly paired with my passion to paint. It is a gold mine of images for my artistic vision.

Stubbs Masterpiece to Be Auctioned at Christie's

Details: Art; By Norman Fine

Do you have a spare thirty-three million dollars sitting around? If so, you might be able to exchange that piece of change for a George Stubbs masterpiece on July 5.

stubbs_painting Christie’s of London plans to sell “Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath, With a Trainer, A Stable Lad, And A Jockey,” and that’s their estimate of the painting’s value. You’ll need a large wall upon which to hang it, though. It measures more than six feet by three feet.

According to John Stainton, senior director of British pictures at Christie’s, this is “one of the finest sporting pictures ever painted.” It last sold for 12,600 pounds in 1951 and is being sold now by the owners of the Woolvington Collection of sporting art.

Posted April 9, 2011

Steeplechase Painting Is Best in Show in National Exhibition

Details: Art; By Norman Fine

susan_smolensky Susan Smolensky, an artist we featured last December, has won Best in Show at the Women Artists of the West 41st National Juried Exhibition in Rockport, Texas. This was not a sporting art exhibition, but Smolensky’s dramatic steeplechase painting evidently captivated the judges.

Capacity Crowd Attends Museum Opening and Inaugural Exhibit

Details: Art; By National Sporting Library and Museum

F. Turner Reuter, Jr., curator and board member, and Jaquiline B. Mars, vice-chairman of the board and gala co-chairman / Nate Jensen photoMore than four hundred people gathered to celebrate the Museum opening at the National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg, Virginia on Saturday, October 8, 2011. Festivities surrounding the opening included a sporting art exhibit, a dinner-dance on the NSLM campus, a three-day coaching event, and a luncheon at beautiful Llangollen.