Ellen Emmet Rand Exhibition “Leads the Field” at NSLM

Details: Art; By Norman Fine

ellen emmet rand.mary foote.1907 Ellen Emmet Rand painted by Mary Foote in 1907A new exhibit, Leading the Field: Ellen Emmet Rand, opens at the National Sporting Library & Museum (NSLM) with a reception for members on October 4, 2019, and will hang through March 22, 2020. Rand was the first female student of American painter and sculptor Frederick MacMonnies, spent decades studying and painting in Paris, and for decades more was a successful portrait painter, commuting from her beloved Connecticut farm to her studio in New York City and across the country on commissions. Her subjects included sportsmen and women, captains of industry, judges, lawyers, socialites, children, and politicians—notably the first presidential portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

During a journey that fulfilled her dream of becoming a foxhunter, she crossed paths with some of the most influential sporting figures of the 1920s and 1930s, memorializing Masters of several prestigious hunts such as Fletcher Harper of Orange County (VA), Dr. Howard Collins of Millbrook (NY), and Evelyn Thayer Burr of Norfolk (MA). This important exhibition brings together several of these sporting commissions as well as paintings, studies, and sketches of the artist’s family and friends, and creates a personal picture of Rand as a fiercely talented painter, loving mother, countrywoman, and horsewoman.

AAEA Art Show Returns to Its Roots

Details: Art; By Norman Fine

aaea2019.linda volrath.mburg photo Linda Volrath from White Post, Virginjia, with one of her oils, a handsomely mounted huntsman, Jordan Hicks, and his Piedmont foxhounds / Middleburg Photo

The American Academy of Equine Art, after an absence of thirty years, has returned to its original home, Middleburg, Virginia, with a delightful exhibit of equine art. The works chosen for the AAEA 39th Annual Open Juried Exhibition will be available for viewing until October 26, 2019 from 10:00 am to 4:30 pm, Monday through Saturday, at the newly occupied headquarters of the Masters of Foxhounds Association, 301 East Washington Street (U.S. Route 50), Middleburg, Virginia 20117.

The MFHA headquarters is “a beautiful facility inside and out, fully restored and expanded,” writes AAEA President Booth Malone. “The Academy plans to give them a show they can be proud of.”

Sporting Art Auction 2019 at Keeneland

Details: Art; By Norman Fine

keeneland 2019.middlebrook hounds in the millbrook country.voss Lot 51, Franklin Brooke Voss (American, 1880–1953), THE MIDDLESEX FOXHOUNDS IN THE MILLBROOK COUNTRY, signed, dated 1921, $8,000. – 10,000

Sunday, November 17, 2019 will mark the seventh annual Sporting Art Auction at the Keeneland Sales Pavilion—a cooperative venture between the world’s largest Thoroughbred auction house and its Lexington, Kentucky neighbor, Cross Gate Gallery, a leading source of the world’s finest sporting art. Collectors will take home works by highly regarded artists at prices possibly as low as $900, many under $3,000...others, truly exceptional works, as high as six figures.

This year’s offerings feature 189 lots of paintings and sculptures by masters long gone as well as by leading contemporary sporting artists of the day. Among the European artists represented are Henry Alken, Peter Curling, John Emms, Harry Hall, the various Herrings, Michael Lyne, Sir Alfred Munnings, and many others. American artists this year include Paul Brown, Juli Kirk, Booth Malone, LeRoy Neiman, Sandra Oppegard, Andre Pater, and Larry Wheeler.