Rush Hour by Booth Malone
In concert with the Virginia Foxhound Club and the Museum of Hounds and Hunting, selected members of the American Academy of Equine Artists (AAEA) have been organized by Academy President Booth Malone to produce a body of artwork for a foxhunting art show.
The idea for the show was conceived by Mrs. Ned “Nina” Bonnie (KY) and Michael Tang (CA). Every MFHA-registered foxhunting club in Virginia will be represented in sculpture and/or in painting by one or more of North America’s leading contemporary sporting artists. The art show will be hung at Morven Park in Leesburg over the Virginia Foxhound Show weekend in May of 2018.
The art show will happily coincide with Hark Forward, the MFHA-sponsored international foxhunting celebration also scheduled for next season. This initiative is the creation of newly-elected MFHA President Tony Leahy, who wishes to recapture the enthusiasm of all North American foxhunters, as did the MFHA-Centennial celebration season ten years ago. Tony’s committee has already been hard at work laying plans for regional joint meets, foxhound performance trials, and field hunter competitions for the 2017/2018 season.
Artists chosen for exhibition will be given their assignments in order to insure fair coverage for all twenty-five hunts in Virginia. Committed to participate in the show so far are sculptors Kathleen Friedenberg (PA) and Morgen Kilbourn (NC), and painters Chris Cancelli (NJ), Booth Malone (GA), Joanne Mehl (OR), Sally Moren (VA), Michael Tang (CA), Linda Volrath (VA), and Larry Dodd Wheeler (GA). Other artists will be invited.
This is a time-sensitive endeavor, and Virginia foxhunters will most likely notice unfamiliar camera-toting individuals roaming their hunting country during meets in the early parts of next season. Some artists have had a head start and have been afield late this past season. They all have much work ahead of them!
Mason Lampton and the The Midland Hounds by Booth Malone
Booth Malone
The organizer of, and one of the contributing artists to, the 2018 foxhunting art show, Booth Malone, is a noted figurative artist, an oil painter in the realist school, and one of the finest equestrian artists in the country. From his studio in Columbus, Georgia, his work has appeared on the cover of numerous horse-oriented magazines. He made his international debut with Frost & Reed Gallery, St. James, London, in 2002. In 2006 he was Official Artist for the Breeder’s Cup, and in 2007 Featured Artist for the Masters of Fox Hunting Association Centennial Exhibit. In 2014, he was Artist in Residence at Keeneland Racetrack in Lexington, Kentucky. His forte is capturing movement, light, and gesture in both people and animals.
Malone teaches equine painting techniques at workshops around the country each year, and he is also a talented portraitist. Recent commissions include Master’s Champion Larry Mize, Marlin Fitzwater (Press Secretary to Presidents Reagan and Bush), Ben Hardaway, Mason Lampton, Olympic Gold Medalists Bruce Davidson and Karen O’Connor, Dr. Jack Hughston (founder of the Hughston Clinic of sports medicine), and Kriss Clonninger (president of AFLAC).
He is president of, and Dean of Painting for, the American Academy of Equine Art, a Member of Merit of the Portrait Society of Atlanta, and Signature Member of both Oil Painters of America and the Society of Animal Artists.
American Academy of Equine Artists
The concept of an American equine art academy was the brainchild of Alexander Mackay-Smith, editor, author, and ex-MFH of the Blue Ridge Hunt (VA) and Dr. Joe Rogers, MFH of the Loudoun Hunt West (VA). The two men were both board members of the Westmoreland Davis Foundation at Morven Park. Their idea was to assemble the finest equine artists in the country to exhibit together, share creative ideas, and, eventually, establish a teaching organization modeled after the Royal Academy in England. Mackay-Smith and Rogers enlisted the credibility and enthusiasm of world-renowned equine artists Jean Bowman and Else Tuckerman who, in turn, recommended a core group of eight more distinguished equine artists.
The American Academy of Equine Artists was officially established in 1980 as a non-profit, tax-exempt organization. The founding members represented a Who’s Who in equine art at the time. Included with Bowman and Tuckerman were June Harrah, Henry Koehler, William Wallace Nall, Marilyn Newmark, Eve Prime, Princess Marie Louise Moncada, Richard Stone Reeves, and Sam Savitt. Today the academy boasts a membership of more than 120 members from the United States and Canada. Artists accepted into the academy after its founding include the late luminaries Anthony Alonzo, Heather St. Clair Davis, and Lanford Monroe.
Booth Malone has said, “The best sporting artists have an eye not only for detail, but for the telling detail—the nuance of gesture, of motion, of light and gear which reflects an insider’s grasp of the outdoor world.” We shall look for those qualities at Morven Park in May of 2018!
Posted March 21, 2017