Sporting Arts

arthur wardle
Arthur Wardle, A Lion and Lioness Lying in the Grass

Returning Home to Wardle

What joy when I saw my two favorite paintings on this side of the pond,…
Dogs:  A Point of Honor Courtesy of National Sporting Library & Museum

Sculptor Walter Matia Is Coming to Town – Middleburg, VA, That Is

But first we went to Walter’s town. Artist C.D. Clarke had been promising for ages…
Antoine-Louis Barye
Antoine-Louis Barye (French, 1796–1875) "Tom the Algerian Greyhound", ca. 1889 Bronze 7⅞”H × 14 3/16”W × 4”D 20 cm × 36.04 cm × 10.16 cm. Marks: signed at center front: Gift of Mrs. Nelson L. St. Clair Jr. Photo: Travis Fullerton © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

An Exemplary Personal Collection of Barye Bronzes

Virginia thoroughbred breeder Patricia R. St. Clair has donated her museum-quality collection of 30 Barye…
The Refuge Tucker Smith
Tucker Smith, The Refuge, 1994, oil on canvas, 36 x 120 inches, JKM Collection©, National Museum of Wildlife Art (Image cropped to fit)

Tucker Smith’s Painting, The Refuge, Has Taken to the Road

One of the most important paintings in the collection of the National Museum of Wildlife…
elephants drinking bodo meier
Elephants Drinking from the Chobe River

Bodo Meier, the Artist Who Takes Artists to Africa

I first met watercolorist Bodo Meier on a snowy night in the dead of winter,…
Mare and Foals
Mares and Foals

Stopping in Georgia to Meet Larry D. Wheeler

What a great excuse to exit I-95 on our trip back north – going to…
haunt of the woodcock
"Haunt of the Woodcock: Sensation and Bang Bang," by John Martin Tracy, was recently acquired by the Museum of the Dog.

A New Masterpiece for Museum of the Dog

The American Kennel Club Museum of the Dog, now returned to its original location in…
Bison Dance of the Mandan Indians, courtesy of Arader Galleries

Museum Blues

When I was young in Paris and London, there was rarely a crowd at any…
galen mercer
"Back Slough" shows Mercer's appreciation of the pictorial drama inherent in high horizons.

Galen Mercer Looks Back on 2020

Yet the outdoorsman within artist Galen Mercer reminds us that when borders started closing, “Through…
duck stamp
Wildfowlers know that the first Federal Duck Stamp was created in 1934 by J.N. "Ding" Darling. 

J. N. “Ding” Darling, Jealousy, and the Mangrove Cuckoo

Years before becoming familiar with the Federal Duck Stamp Act, I gathered seashells along the…
Rockwell's April-Fool cover for the 1945 Saturday Evening Post has 50 "mistakes."

A Break in the Clouds with Norman Rockwell

The last time I spent time with Norman Rockwell’s work was the year O.J. Simpson…
rhinocerus
Albrecht Dürer's 1515 woodcut, The Rhinocerus, was based on a written description of the greater one-horned rhinoceros.

Contemplating Dürer’s Indian Rhinoceros

In what seems an impossible journey now, in 2017 we travelled down the Brahmaputra River…