Exhibitions

A Sporting Vision: The Paul Mellon Collection of British Sporting Art from the VMFA

Apr 13, 2018 - Jul 22, 2018

The National Sporting Library & Museum is the opening venue for the major traveling exhibition of eighty-four paintings organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) with representative masterpieces of the genre—including works by George Stubbs, Sir Francis Grant, John Frederick Herring, Benjamin Marshall, and George Morland— celebrates Paul Mellon’s gift of British sporting art to the VMFA. It also proposes a fresh look at sporting art within wider social and artistic contexts, including the scientific and industrial revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries, the transformation of the British countryside, the evolutionary history of the horse and other animals, and society’s changing habits and customs.

A Sporting Vision: The Paul Mellon Collection of British Sporting Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts was curated by Dr. Mitchell Merling, the VMFA's Paul Mellon Curator and Head of the Department of European Art, and the catalog was written by Dr. Colleen Yarger, Researcher and Curatorial Assistant of the VMFA's Paul Mellon Collections.

A Sporting Vision:
The Paul Mellon Collection of British Sporting Art
from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Hardcover Exhibition Catalog
Available at the Museum Front Desk or
PURCHASE ONLINE


This exhibition is made possible at the National Sporting Library & Museum with support from:

Mrs. Frances Massey Dulaney
Dr. and Mrs. Manuel H. Johnson
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Michelle and B. Tim Brookshire
Lorian Peralta-Ramos
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Private Donors
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YHB | CPAs & Consultants

George Stubbs (English, 1724–1806)
Hyaena at Newmarket with One of Jenison Shafto’s Stablelads, ca. 1765–7 (Detail)
oil on canvas, 40 1/8 x 50 1/8 inches
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Paul Mellon Collection, photo Katherine Wetzel © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

George Stubbs (English, 1724–1806)
Hyaena at Newmarket with One of Jenison Shafto’s Stablelads, ca. 1765–7 (Detail)
oil on canvas, 40 1/8 x 50 1/8 inches
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Paul Mellon Collection, photo Katherine Wetzel © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

George Stubbs (English, 1724–1806) 
Black and White Spaniel Following a Scent, 1793
oil on canvas, 25 x 30 inches 
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Paul Mellon Collection, photo: Katherine Wetzel 
© Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

George Stubbs (English, 1724–1806) 
Black and White Spaniel Following a Scent, 1793
oil on canvas, 25 x 30 inches 
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Paul Mellon Collection, photo: Katherine Wetzel 
© Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A. (Scottish, 1803–1878)
The Melton Hunt Going to Draw the Ram’s Head Cover, 1839
 oil on canvas, 36 x 60 inches
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Paul Mellon Collection, photo: Katherine Wetzel 
© Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A. (Scottish, 1803–1878)
The Melton Hunt Going to Draw the Ram’s Head Cover, 1839
 oil on canvas, 36 x 60 inches
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Paul Mellon Collection, photo: Katherine Wetzel 
© Virginia Museum of Fine Arts