A Sporting Vision: The Paul Mellon Collection of British Sporting Art

A Sporting Vision: The Paul Mellon Collection of British Sporting Art includes representative masterpieces of the genre, including works by George Stubbs, Sir Francis Grant, John Frederick Herring, Benjamin Marshall, and George Morland. Mr. Mellon donated this collection to VMFA, and the British Sporting Art galleries were dedicated in 1985. The collection includes 84 works, including six by Stubbs, who is recognized as the greatest of all British Sporting painters.

While the collection is presented in a chronological sequence at VMFA, the traveling exhibition will display the works in thematic sections that will give a cohesive narrative to the collection, while also underscoring the importance of sporting art and tradition to British society and history as a whole. The themes are In Pursuit; In Motion; Animal, Man, Country; and The World Upside Down.

 


 
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A Sporting Vision proposes a fresh look at British Sporting Art,” said Dr. Michael R. Taylor, VMFA’s Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Art and Education. “The exhibition places these paintings within wider social and artistic contexts, including the scientific and industrial revolutions taking place in Great Britain and elsewhere in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, as well as the transformation of the British countryside, and the evolutionary history of the horse and other animals. Our hope is that visitors to the traveling exhibition will see these images of sporting life in a new way.”