National Sporting Library and Museum
Summer Movies, Concerts at National Sporting Library and Museum
The National Sporting Library & Museum (NSLM) in Middleburg, Virginia has announced a summer program of free movies and concerts, with Museum galleries remaining open during the events. Movies are shown on Saturday afternoons from March to December 12. Concerts will take place every fourth Friday from April through September. The summer series features popular sporting movies, regional musical performers, craft beers, and local wineries. Guests are invited to stroll through the Art Museum to enjoy changing exhibitions and permanent collections or to spread out picnic blankets and lawn chairs for the open-air concert. During the Open Late events, the Museum will be open until 8:00 p.m. Library and Museum facilities will also remain open late on the first Friday of April, May, June, July, August and September. Melanie Mathewes, Executive Director of the National Sporting Library & Museum explained, “We’re very excited to announce that this year, on the first Friday of April, May, June, July, August and September, our facilities and our campus will be open late to allow the public to visit and enjoy our treasures. We’ve planned these events with young families in mind and with the hope that those passing through Middleburg after work will join us.” Open Late is free and open to the public; picnics are welcome and a cash bar will be available. Events will be held rain or shine, and no outside alcohol will be permitted on premises. Movie CalendarMovies will be shown free of charge in the Library’s Founder’s Room at 1:00 pm. Popcorn Monkey of Middleburg will sell popcorn onsite to accompany the films. March 14 – War HorseApril 11 – International Velvet May 9 – Into the WestJune 13 – Black Beauty July 11 – A River Runs Through It August 8 – Running Free October 10 – The Black Stallion November 14 – SecretariatDecember 12 – Sylvester Open Late Concert CalendarConcerts are free and open to the public; picnics are welcome; and a cash bar will be available. Events will be held rain or shine, and no outside alcohol will be permitted on premises. April 24 – Middleburg Hunt Point-to-Point NightDifficult Run Jazz BandSouth Street Brewing | Three Fox Vineyards May 22Tara Mills Band3 Brothers Brewing | Naked Mountain Winery June 26 – Virginia Tech Alumni NightPiedmont Symphony OrchestraForge Brew Works | Cana Winery July 24 – George Mason Alumni NightGeorge Mason University Jazz EnsembleHardywood Park Craft Brewery | Otium Winery August 28Reckless IslandMad Fox Brewing Company | Boxwood Winery September 25 – Friends and Family NightFoxcroft School, The Hill School,Middleburg Academy, Middleburg CommunityCharter School, and Wakefield SchoolLisa Lim BandLegend Brewing | Market Salamander The National Sporting Library & Museum is dedicated to preserving, promoting and sharing the literature, art and culture of equestrian, angling and field sports. Founded in 1954, NSLM holds thousands of books on sporting topics including hunting, angling, equestrianism and horseracing, among others. The Library collection dates from the 16th-21st centuries. The Museum houses exhibits of American and European animal and sporting fine art. Information is shared through exhibitions, lectures, seminars, publications and special events. The NSLM is open to researchers and the general public. Regular Museum Hours: Wednesday – Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday 1 p.m. to 5 p.m Posted march 18, 2015
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Two-Part Edward Troye Exhibit at NSL&M
The National Sporting Library and Museum (NSLM) in Middleburg, Virginia has mounted a comprehensive exhibit in two parts: the paintings of Edward Troye and the archives of his biographers, Harry Worcester Smith and Alexander Mackay-Smith. The paintings (on view in the Museum) and the archives (exhibited in the Library) may now be seen through March 29, 2015.
Troye played an important role not only in American art but also in preserving the images of leading American Thoroughbreds of the nineteenth century. Highlights of the exhibit include many of Troye’s most recognized portrayals of important racehorses, jockeys, and trainers of the antebellum period.
Lecture, Book Signing on Grisone’s Sixteenth Century Riding Manual
Elizabeth M. Tobey will present a lecture and book signing at the Middleburg Public Library on September 18 at 7:30 p.m. Tobey will discuss her (and Dr. Federica Deigan’s) translation of Federico Grisone’s The Rules of Riding (Gli ordini di cavalcare). Tobey began the translation project seven years ago while a John H. Daniels Fellow at the National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg. The translation is based upon the First Edition of Grisone’s text published in 1550 and is the first English translation of this exceedingly rare text since 1560, when Thomas Blundeville translated it for Sir Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth I’s Master of the Horse. “Grisone’s treatise and the riding masters trained at his riding academy in Naples, Italy, spread the practice of the art of manège riding to courts throughout Europe,” explains Tobey. “Twenty-three Italian editions of the text were published between 1550 and 1620 and the treatise was translated into French, English, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. “Many of the concepts Grisone discusses in his treatise—such as developing contact between horse and rider and collection in the horse—are still major tenets of modern dressage riding. The haute école or High School movements of classical dressage are still practiced today by such traditional academies as the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Austria and the Cadre Noir in Saumur, France.” Tobey’s lecture will discuss Grisone’s influence on the history of horsemanship and the role of horsemanship in Renaissance Europe. Videos of classical dressage at the Spanish Riding School and other classical schools will be shown. The Tobey and Deigan translation was published last May by the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University. A few copies will be available for sale at a publishers’ discount of $60.00 for cash or check sales only. Posted September 1, 2014
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VA Hound Show Weekend Features NSL Book Fair, Hunt Country Stable Tour
Visitors in town for the Virginia Foxhound Show will be able to attend the third annual Book Fair at the National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg, Virginia on Saturday, May 25, 2013 from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. A part of the annual Hunt Country Stable Tour, the Book Fair is open to the public, free of charge. Authors Rita Mae Brown, Charles de Kunffy, Jan Neuharth, and Dorothy Ours will speak and sign books. The Hunt Country Stable Tour centered in Upperville is another excellent diversion for out-of-town visitors. The stable tour runs on both Saturday and Sunday (May 25–26) and offers an inside view of many of the very best and most beautiful farms and training facilities in the region. This year’s tour features Ardarra Farm, Hickory House Farm, Salem Stable, Windsor Farm, and Peace & Plenty at Bollingbrook among more than a dozen stops. Many of the farms on the tour will provide demonstrations of equestrian activities ranging from show jumping to foxhunting to Civil War re-enactments. Visitors will be welcomed with coffee and donuts from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. at the Middleburg Training Track on Saturday only, to watch local racehorses workout. Tickets for the tour at $30.00 for adults are available during tour hours from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. each day at the Trinity Episcopal Church in Upperville. Proceeds benefit the church’s charities and non-profit programs. Maps, directions, and descriptions for all the tour stops are provided for self-touring. For complete information, call 540-592-3711 or visit www.trinityupperville.org/hunt-country-stable-tour. Posted May 24, 2013
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Melanie Mathewes Named Exec Director at National Sporting Library
Culminating an extensive nationwide search, the National Sporting Library and Museum (NSLM) in Middleburg, Virginia has announced the appointment of Melanie Mathewes as its new Executive Director. For the last eight years, Mathewes has served as Executive Director of the Hermitage Museum and Gardens in Norfolk, Virginia. During her tenure, she oversaw the first strategic plan for the Hermitage, resulting in plant improvements and a dramatic increase in membership and visitation. She is also an adjunct faculty member at Tidewater Community College, teaching courses in art history. She holds a bachelor’s degree in art history from Virginia Tech and a master’s degree in museum studies from Virginia Commonwealth University. Manuel Johnson, chairman of the NSLM Board of Directors said, “[Melanie’s] record in Norfolk is most impressive, and when we interviewed her, we could see why she was so successful there. We look forward to working with her to take the National Sporting Library and Museum to an even higher level.” Posted February 19, 2013
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NSLM Holds Book Fair Over Virginia Hound Show Weekend
Visitors in town for the Virginia Foxhound Show will be able to attend the second annual Book Fair at the National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg, Virginia on Saturday, May 26, 2012 from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. A part of the annual Hunt Country Stable Tour, the Book Fair is open to the public. Five authors will sign books and give brief talks about their work: Kathryn Masson (Hunt Country Style; Stables: Beautiful Paddocks, Horse Barns, and Tack Rooms; Historic Houses of Virginia; Great Plantation Houses, Mansions, and Country Places); Patrick Smithwick (Flying Change: A Return to Steeplechasing; Racing My Father: Growing up with a Riding Legend); Elizabeth Letts with guest Harry de Leyer (The Eighty Dollasr Champion: Snowman, the Horse that Inspired a Nation); Anne Hambleton (Raja: Story of a Racehorse); and F. Turner Reuter, Jr. (Animal & Sporting Artists in America). A duplicate book sale will also be going on at the Library and Museum, as well as other current exhibits, including Scraps: British Sporting Drawings from the Paul Mellon Collection. Posted May 14, 2012
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Scraps: British Sporting Drawings from the Paul Mellon Collection
Drawing by Samuel Howitt used as illustration in a book of fables published in 1818. The rooster and dog are traveling together. The fox tries to trick the rooster into descending, but the rooster leads the unwitting fox to the dog instead.The National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg, Virginia has mounted an art exhibit—Scraps: British Sporting Drawings from the Paul Mellon Collection. The exhibit will run from April 6 to June 30, 2012 and will provide a worthwhile destination for those in town for the Virginia Foxhound Show over the Memorial Day weekend in May.
The title, Scraps, is inspired by a series of Henry Alken drawings by the same name, published in the early 1800s, in a loose, informal, and sometimes humorous vein. The exhibit includes original examples of these works by Alken and other sporting artists of the period: Samuel Howitt, Edwin Landseer, Henry Heath, Thomas Rowlandson, Thomas Miles Richardson, and others.
Capacity Crowd Attends Museum Opening and Inaugural Exhibit
F. Turner Reuter, Jr., curator and board member, and Jaquiline B. Mars, vice-chairman of the board and gala co-chairman / Nate Jensen photoMore than four hundred people gathered to celebrate the Museum opening at the National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg, Virginia on Saturday, October 8, 2011. Festivities surrounding the opening included a sporting art exhibit, a dinner-dance on the NSLM campus, a three-day coaching event, and a luncheon at beautiful Llangollen.
NSLM Announces Inaugural Exhibition
Catalog Cover: William Tylee Ranney, On the Wing, 1850, private collectionThe National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg, Virginia has announced details of the inaugural exhibition to be hung in its new museum building. The structure has been built around the nucleus of the 1804 brick mansion, Vine Hill, that housed both The Chronicle of the Horse and the National Sporting Library for so many years. The exhibition, Afield in America: 400 Years of Animal and Sporting Art 1585–1985, is curated by F. Turner Reuter, Jr. and will run from October 11, 2011 through January 14, 2012. The exhibition is based on Reuter’s book Animal and Sporting Artists in America, published in 2008 by the National Sporting Library. Designed to appeal to a wide audience, Afield in America presents works by iconic American artists such as Albert Bierstadt, Alfred Jacob Miller, and Frederic Remington, as well as those by recognized masters of the animal and sporting art genre, including John James Audubon, Edward Troye, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, and William Tylee Ranney. “The works of other fine American sporting artists, which have long been esteemed by enthusiasts of the genre but, until recently, were often overlooked by art historians, are an important focus of the exhibition,” says Mr. Reuter. This group includes: William Herbert Dunton, Herbert Haseltine, Thomas Hewes Hinckley, Anna Hyatt Huntington, Alexander Pope, Ogden Pleissner, Percival Rosseau, and John Martin Tracy. Click for more details. The National Sporting Library was founded in 1954 by George L. Ohrstrom, Sr. and Alexander Mackay-Smith. It is a library, research facility, and art museum now containing more than seventeen thousand books and works of art in the collections. One week before the exhibition opens—from October 7–9, 2011—a historic coaching drive and gala will take place to commemorate the opening of the museum. Posted July 2, 2011
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National Sporting Library Presents Symposium on Hunting Dogs
John Emms, oil on canvas, collection National Sporting Library and Museum
The National Sporting Library & Museum in Middleburg, Virginia, will host a full-day symposium "Lives of Dogs: Origins & Evolution of Hunting & Sporting Breeds" from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, October 23, 2010. An international panel of six speakers, moderated by Timothy J. Greenan, M.D., will trace the history of hunting with dogs from prehistory through the present day. The symposium, made possible by the gift of an anonymous donor, is part of the Library’s Public Lecture Series, and coincides with the exhibition "Lives of Dogs, Viewed through Literature, Art, & Ephemera" on view through December 11, 2010.
