Heather St. Clair-Davis, On Scent, oil on canvas, 18” x 24”A selection of sporting and other contemporary equine art from the renowned Cross Gate Gallery in Lexington, Kentucky is now on exhibit at the Willcox Hotel in Aiken, South Carolina until the end of April.
This year’s exhibition features works by the late Heather St. Clair-Davis, Michael Lyne, Henry Koehler, as well as contemporaries Andre Pater, Larry Wheeler, Sandra Oppegard, Russian-born Valeriy Gridnev, and other highly regarded artists. Painting in several sporting disciplines—foxhunting, Thoroughbred racing, hunter/jumpers, coaching, and shooting—the exhibit provides a broad presentation of equine and field sport this year.
Andre Pater, Pair of Hounds, oil on canvas,16” x 19”
Most foxhunters who have been to Aiken are well familiar with the lovely Willcox Hotel. Tuesday nights especially are ‘foxhunters’ night’ through the season, where foxhunting visitors find a welcoming watering hole, many of their own kind (especially those escaping the northern latitudes), and, often, a special event of interest to followers of the sport.
Michael Lyne, Foxhunting, Ireland, watercolor gouache, 9” x 12.5”
Frederick Willcox, an emigre from Cheshire, England, had worked as a caterer for a hotel in Aiken in the late nineteenth century. In that capacity he had formed lasting friendships with social leaders along the East Coast, among them Mrs. Thomas Hitchcock—namesake of the beautiful Aiken Woods, the largest urban forest in America—who visited the town each winter. When that hotel burned down, Willcox opened his own hotel and welcomed his first guest in 1900. The Willcox became a scene for lavish entertainment during the 1920s and 1930s, with guests returning year after year for a lively social and sporting season in Aiken’s pleasant climate. Famous guests included Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Harold Vanderbilt, W.R. Grace, Governor Averell Harriman of New York, Elizabeth Arden, and Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden. The Duke of Windsor unfortunately was once turned away because the hotel was full during Masters Week!
The Willcox has been voted one of the best hotels in the world by Travel + Leisure and Conde Nast Traveler readers. The management prides its reputation as “the living room of its community and a second home to out-of-town guests.” It would be hard to find a more pleasant venue for a sporting art show than a hotel like the Willcox, in a town like Aiken—a fixture for sportsmen and women for more than a century.
Posted March 8, 2019