A Sporting Vision: The Paul Mellon Collection of British Sporting Art
A Sporting Vision: The Paul Mellon Collection of British Sporting Art
includes representative masterpieces of the genre, including works by
George Stubbs, Sir Francis Grant, John Frederick Herring, Benjamin
Marshall, and George Morland. Mr. Mellon donated this collection to
VMFA, and the British Sporting Art galleries were dedicated in 1985. The
collection includes 84 works, including six by Stubbs, who is
recognized as the greatest of all British Sporting painters.- National Sporting Library and Museum, Middleburg, Virginia, April 7–July 22, 2018
- Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennessee, January 26–May 5, 2019
- The Frick Art & Historical Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, June 15–September 8, 2019
While the collection is presented in a chronological sequence at VMFA, the traveling exhibition will display the works in thematic sections that will give a cohesive narrative to the collection, while also underscoring the importance of sporting art and tradition to British society and history as a whole. The themes are In Pursuit; In Motion; Animal, Man, Country; and The World Upside Down.
Read more at https://vmfa.museum/exhibitions/exhibitions/scraps-british-sporting-drawings-paul-mellon-collection/#vDHH0pPXRsBBjMAF.99
“
A Sporting Vision proposes a fresh look at British Sporting Art,” said Dr. Michael R. Taylor, VMFA’s Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Art and Education. “The exhibition places these paintings within wider social and artistic contexts, including the scientific and industrial revolutions taking place in Great Britain and elsewhere in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as the transformation of the British countryside, and the evolutionary history of the horse and other animals. Our hope is that visitors to the traveling exhibition will see these images of sporting life in a new way.”
