Sunday 31 May 2009

Exhibition: From Stubbs to Munnings. Note 21.

Last September, while writing about the Sartorius family (Note 10), I mentioned James Harvey's wide-ranging exhibition of sporting art at his Gallery at 15 Langton Street, London SW10. Now, like the proverbial London buses arriving together after a long interval, there is a similar exhibition opening the day after tomorrow (2 June, continuing until the 26th). This exhibition is mounted by Dickinson, 58 Jermyn Street, SW1: Sporting Art, from Stubbs to Munnings, an Exhibition of 300 years of British Sporting Art, is the full title. It is a selling exhibition, but among the paintings hanging on the walls are a number of very choice examples of the genre on loan from private collections.

Before describing some of the exhibits, particularly those of small size, I have some sympathy with the browser of catalogues who is confused by the size of the picture illustrations compared to the dimensions of the real thing. Of course, one should look at the measurements given, but how often have you seen a comparatively large photograph in a catalogue and then spent time searching the exhibition or sale-room walls only to discover the picture tucked away in a corner to be of 'cabinet' size? It works the other way too! Plainly the designers of catalogues would have fits if they were asked to provide all the catalogue illustrations in proportion to the size of the originals - but how useful it would be to discover at a glance, by size, the picture you were looking for!

This impossible thought came into my head when admiring Dickinson's catalogue (as tall as but slightly wider than A4). The opening page has two photographs of similar size, one above the other. The top is of a really good example of John Wootton horse portraiture. It is of The Prince of Denmark's horse, Leedes, held [being led] by a Groom, (39 x 49 inches). Below is A Lion and Lioness by George Stubbs, a 1778 enamel on Wedgwood earthenware, 17 x 24 inches. The first is on loan. The size of an illustration is often related to the importance of the painting or painter, as here, although another nice Wootton, A Grey Racehorse held by a Groom (40 x 50 inches) is illustrated later in the catalogue where there are four photographs to the page. But that is enough of that!

There are lovely equestrian portraits by John Ferneley and by John Frederick Herring Snr., again the first is on loan. The Ferneley is of Andrew Berkeley Drummond mounted on Butcher at Cadland, and the Herring shows The Hon. Edward Petre's The Colonel with William Scott up. It was painted in the year that The Colonel won the 1828 St Leger. The Colonel's trainer, Bill Scott's brother John Scott and a groom are in attendance. Both paintings demonstrate each artist's ability to paint sympathtically both horses and people but, really above all, they breath the air of those portrayed being masters of all they survey in their respective sporting roles. The landscape backgounds are of a tranquil England - even on Doncaster racecourse. I have difficulty in classifying many of Sir Edwin Landseer's paintings as 'sporting' works. He was an extraordinarily observant painter of animals of every kind from polar bears to greyhounds but, at times, as in this exhibition, he seemed preoccupied with death, perhaps a portent of his later bouts of irrational temper and depression. A Deer just Shot, and its pair Deer fallen from a Precipice, painted around 1828-29 (each 18 x 24 inches), are uncomfortable pictures of this usually magnificent animal in distress - sporting pictures? I think not; but where else do you exhibit them if not among sporting and animal paintings?

Among the exhibitions smaller pictures are a pair of those rarities, fishing paintings by James Pollard. They are of Pike Fishing at Waltham Abbey, Essex and Trout Fishing at Beddington Corner, Surrey. Both are on panel, 7 x 10 inches. Pollard was a keen fisherman himself when not being pursued by his father to engrave, or painting his lively, decorative coaching scenes. These little jems, 6 x 8 inches, have the added interest of being identifiable scenes and, had they not also been on loan, would, as they say, fly off the wall into new ownership. Another small pair of paintings, 6 x 8 inches, are shooting pictures apparently by the little known artist, John Pitman. More usually associated with painting horses or cattle (and a few pictures of dead game), Pitman rarely strayed far from Worcetsershire where he was born in 1789. The paintings are of Pheasant Shooting and Grouse Shooting. In the latter scene the fenced and wooded landscape suggests that the grouse have flown far from their usual habitat, although in years gone by I have attempted to shoot grouse in North Wales. Pitman was a close friend of the miniature painter James Clements who moved from London to Worcester in about 1820. He included Pitman in miniature in his fascinating group portrait of some local gentlemen and businessmen Bowling on the Green at the Saracen's Head, Worcester, 1821. Pitman died at Alveley, Shropshire in 1850. It is valuable to add these two pictures to the short list of his known work. Among other small paintings is a Spaniel flushing out a Pheasant (7 x 9 inches), 1838, by William J. Shayer and, from the previous year, the slightly larger, exuberant Flora, Springer Spaniel [in the act of retrieving] of Mr R.L. Evans, by the more versatile Francis Calcraft Turner.

These are just a few of the interesting pictures in the exhibition which includes French and English bronzes as well as a pair of typically smooth and tactile studies of Thoroughbred Horses by the American, Herbert Heseltine, who spent some years in England at the beginning of the 20th Century. The exhibition provides a reminder of the development of sporting art in this country from the slight stiffness of Wootton's equine portraits to the semi-impressionism of Munnings. There are some familiar friends seen before, but the whole exhibition succeeds in embracing the years between the mid-18th and 20th centuries, as the exhibition title foretells. Members of the British Sporting Art Trust have a Private View on 9 June.

Returning to the beginning of this Note, James Harvey is holding a one-man exhibition of the paintings and drawings of the contemporary Daniel Crane, "Horsey Pictures in Ascot Week", at his SW10 Gallery from 7 June until 2 July.

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