Piedmont Fox Hounds II by Rev. Michael TangThe Museum of Hounds And Hunting will present an art show, The Year of the Hound: Showcasing the Foxhunts of Virginia. The show will open with a reception at Morven Park over the Virginia Foxhound Show Weekend. Artwork for the show has been created throughout the past foxhunting season by invited members of the American Academy of Equine Art (AAEA), a national organization founded in the Virginia Hunt Country in 1980.
All pieces—paintings and sculptures—will be new works of art representing every registered foxhunt in the Commonwealth: twenty-five active hunts. The show will open at 4 PM in the Morven Park Mansion, Leesburg, Virginia, on Saturday, May 26, 2018. An Opening Reception will be held Saturday evening from 5–7 PM. The show will be open on Sunday as well (the day of the hound show), and all works will remain on view until Saturday, June 30. The show will include about fifty new works by Signature members of the AAEA. All art will be for sale, and a portion of sales will benefit the Museum of Hounds and Hunting.
Huntsman Larry Pitts and the foxhounds of the Bedford Hunt by Booth MaloneThe idea for the art show was conceived by Mrs. Ned “Nina” Bonnie (KY) and artist Michael Tang. Booth Malone, president of the AAEA, organized the show and the participating artists. Selected by invitation to create original Virginia foxhunting artworks were Christine Cancelli (NJ), Kathleen Friedenberg (PA), Morgen Kilbourn (NC), Booth Malone (GA), Joanne Mehl (OR), Sally Moren (VA), Rev. Michael Tang (CA), Linda Volrath (VA), and Larry Dodd Wheeler (GA).
While each of the twenty-five hunts in Virginia will be represented by at least one work of art, more works have been created by these distinguished artists than can be hung at Morven Park. About fifty works in total will be juried/curated for the show, and the competition among the artists to have additional works included will be intense! The collection promises to be a varied, memorable, and unique exhibition and sale of high quality paintings and sculptures.
Blue Ridge Hunt by Linda VolrathThe American Academy of Equine Art was conceived in 1980 by Alexander Mackay-Smith and Dr. Joseph Rogers, both board members of the Westmoreland Davis Foundation at Morven Park. The intention was to assemble the finest equine artists in the country to exhibit together, share creative ideas, and, eventually, to establish a teaching organization modeled after the Royal Academy in England.
World-renowned equine artists Jean Bowman and Else Tuckerman were consulted, and they suggested a core group of ten distinguished painters and sculptors who formed the American Academy of Equine Art, Inc. that same year. The AAEA was then based in Middleburg, Virginia. The founding members were an impressive list of who’s who in equine art: Jean Bowman, June Harrah, Henry Koehler, William Wallace Nall, Marilyn Newmark, Eve Prime, Princess Marie Louise Moncada, Richard Stone Reeves, Sam Savitt and Else Tuckerman.
The Academy’s first exhibition was held at the Museum of Hounds and Hunting at Morven Park in the fall of 1980. The AAEA is now headquartered at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky.
Posted April 19, 2018