Cross Gate Gallery (Lexington) has curated a one-man exhibition of paintings by renowned sporting artist Larry Dodd Wheeler at the Willcox Hotel in Aiken, SC. The Opening Reception was held on Feb 24, 2017, and the paintings will hang through April 14.
The Willcox Hotel is a popular Aiken meeting place for horsepeople of many disciplines—foxhunting, eventing, racing, and polo—and Larry Wheeler’s art should find an enthusiastic audience there. Members and hunting visitors from the Aiken Hounds (SC), Whiskey Road Foxhounds (SC), Why Worry Hounds (SC), and Belle Meade Hunt (GA) are seen at the Willcox throughout the season for cocktails and dinner and especially on Hunt Nights (Tuesdays).
Wheeler has drawn and painted since childhood. He began his formal studies with portraitist Jack Brock in Atlanta and received his Bachelor in Fine Arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1961. After working as a painting conservator at both the Corcoran Gallery and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC for several years, Wheeler returned to the Baltimore Institute and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from their Hoffberger School of Painting in 1972. He also taught painting, drawing, and anatomy at the Institute and at Baltimore community colleges.
Much of Wheeler’s work involves horses as the link between people and the natural landscape, whether engaged in foxhunting, racing, or polo. The relationships he establishes between his subjects are natural and authentic, fleeting moments captured true to the instant. His work hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, State House in Annapolis, Johns Hopkins Hospital, the Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., the Federal Building in Baltimore, Kenneland in Lexington, Kentucky, and in many private collections across the country. Strong demand continues for his commissioned work, which also hangs in many private collections around the country.
Larry Wheeler is represented by Cross Gate Gallery in Lexington, Kentucky (curators of the exhibition) and by Dog and Horse Fine Art in Charleston, South Carolina.
Posted February 28, 2017
