exhibition in NY

The Bichon Frise in Art

Curated by Edward J. Shephard Jr.

September 21 - October 25, 2009. Opening on Sunday September 20th, 4 - 7 p.m. Tea and biscuits will be served. Dogs are welcome.

"This is an exhibition of depictions of the Bichon Frisé in various works of art spanning over 2,000 years. It includes artworks that explicity identify the subjects as Bichons or as ancestors of the breed, as well as other works that I (in my admittedly non-expert judgment) have deemed to be possible depictions of the Bichon Frisé or its ancestors.

The aim of this exhibit is not to be scientifically exact. My aim is to bring together -- for Bichon-lovers everywhere -- many wonderful works of art through which we can trace the development of the modern Bichon Frisé.

Here you will find depictions of dogs that are likely ancestors of the Bichon, as well as works that specifically identify this breed. Of course, it is not always possible to tell when an artist was working from a living-and-breathing model and when he or she was working from memory or imagination. Thus, I have included works where the depiction has decidedly non-Bichon features but the overall impression is that of a Bichon-like dog". - Edward J. Shephard Jr.

http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~eshephar/bichoninart/bichoninart.html

Fabienne Stephan, who works as the director of Salon 94 Freemans on the Lower East Side, has opened a minuscule space around the corner on Chrystie Street with her husband, Paul-Aymar Mourgue d’Algue, and a friend, Hanne Mugaas. Measuring 6 by 16 feet, the gallery, called Art Since the Summer of ’69, is described by Ms. Stephan as having “the same square footage of a large painting that could be hanging in a big Chelsea gallery.” The next exhibition, opening Sept. 21, will be “The Bichon Frise in Art,” an archive of reproductions of paintings with small white dogs and some contemporary works made in response to them.

“It’s too easy to go around and see exhibitions you don’t like and criticize things,” Ms. Stephan said. “We decided do something that we like.”

Kurt Meyer-Eberhardt

Kurt Meyer-Eberhardt (1895 - 1977)

Kurt Meyer-Eberhardt's color engravings are famous all over the world. He is one of the great copper engravers of the 20th century. His name can be found in all the important reference books such as Theime-Becker/Benezit/Vollmer Art Lexicon. Kurt Meyer-Eberhardt was born in Leipzig in 1895. He studied at the Weimar Academy of Fine Arts where he was a student under the artists Theodor Hagen and Lionel Feininger. He rejected a professorship in Weimar and went to Munich where he decided to work entirely on animal engravings.

Arthur Dodds

Dodd, Arthur Charles (fl. 1878 - 1891)

Biography

Arthur Charles Dodd painted animal and sporting subjects, working initially in Tunbridge Wells and later at Dedham in Essex. His hunting scenes tend to give prominence to the hounds with the horses being a less significant part of the composition. An engraving of Foxhounds coming through Brambles by Dodd was published in 1887, from a painting dated 1886.

The Stable Yard

Exhibited : Royal Academy

The Stable Yard by Dodd, Arthur Charles

Dog from Pompei

THE DOG FROM POMPEI

AUGUST 24, 79 A.D.

Mount Vesuvius was blazing in several places...A black and dreadful cloud bursting out in gusts of igneous serpentine vapor now and again yawned open to reveal long, fantastic flames, resembling flashes of lightning, but much larger...Cinders fell...then pumice-stones too, with stones blackened, scorched, and cracked by fire ...

The scene described by Pliny the Younger occurred on an August afternoon in 79 A.D. Of the more than 20,000 inhabitants in the city of Pompei, several hundred died that day in their homes and in the streets. The rest fled toward the sea.

The Pompeians who died trying to flee the city were buried in layers of moist ash, which as it fell was packed gently about the victims, precisely in the manner of plaster molds, preserving in detail their very features, the musculature of their bodies, and even the folds of their garments.

Of course the bodies of these Pompeians decomposed in time; but by then the molds had hardened, and the outlines endured throughout the centuries.

These mold formations were discovered as early as 1860 by one of the first archaeologists at Pompei, Giuseppe Fiorelli. He is credited with developing the process by which the molds - one might call them negatives in clay - are turned into the positive plaster forms. The technique was further refined by the archaeologist Amadeo Maiuri, who was in charge of Pompei excavations for much of the present century.

The technique is simple. During excavation, the presence of the ash cavities is detected by cautiously tapping the ground with blunted pickaxes. When the excavators spot a hollow, they drill several holes through the stratum of ash directly into the mold.

Through these holes the chamber is probed and cleaned with a surgeon's tool, and thinned plaster of Paris is poured into the cavity. In three days' time the plaster has hardened, and the surrounding ash is chipped away, destroying the original cavity, to uncover a cast of the eruption victim.

The results are startling. Suddenly we are faced with the inhabitants of Pompei from the dim past, captured at their very moment of death. Some show an attitude of fierce struggle against their fate; others recline peacefully as though in sleep.

The cavity of The Dog From Pompei was discovered November 20, 1874, in the house of Marcus Vesonius Primus, in the "Fauce," the corridor at the entrance of the house. The house was located in Region VI, Insula 14, Nr. 20.

During the eruption, the unfortunate dog, wearing his bronze-studded collar, was left chained up at his assigned place to watch the house, and he suffocated beneath the ash and cinders.

Allan McCollum's casts were taken directly from a mold made especially for the artist from the original second-generation cast presently on display at the Museo Vesuviano, in present-day Pompei. The project was realized by special permission of the Pompei Tourist Board, and was made possible through the co-ordination of Studio Trisorio, Naples, Italy, and Essex Works, New York City.

George Earl

Earl, George (1824 - 1908)

A Setter on a Moor

Stock code: C2463

Oil on Canvas

30 x 40 inches

Biography

The father of the dog and animal artists, Maud and Percy Earl, George was also the brother of another animal artist, Thomas Earl. George was an active sportsman who excelled in the depiction of dogs and he is remembered primarily as a sporting dog painter. Little is known of his background and training or his early work.

Earl exhibited nineteen paintings at the Royal Academy between 1857 and 1882, although only two were of dogs (a Maltese and an Old English Mastiff). His most important work was undoubtedly 'The Field Trial Meeting' which depicted a mythical field trial in Bala, North Wales, in which almost all the important field trial personalities of the day are depicted with their dogs. He is also remembered for an important series of portrait head studies of dogs, Champions of England. Painted in the 1870s, this was illustrated in a now rare volume of the same name.

Literature: 'Dog Painting. The European Breeds' by William Secord, published by the Antiques Collectors' Club

Leon F Whitney Dog Collection

Champion Show Dogs
at the Yale Peabody Museum

One of the Yale Peabody Museum’s more unusual, and probably unique, collections is the Leon F. Whitney Dog Collection in the Division of Vertebrate Zoology, known in the 1930s as the “Dog Hall of Fame.”

The collection was the idea of Leon Whitney—a local veterinarian, prolific writer on veterinary and other topics, developer of animal foods, breeder of bloodhounds, and student of genetics. In 1928, while attempting to write an article on dog breeds of the 19th century, Dr. Whitney found it difficult to track down relevant information. He realized that a collection of champion dogs of his own time would be a valuable reference for future study, indicative of genetic diversity and the results of selective breeding, and providing a record the current standards of the various breeds. He proposed to the Peabody, to enthusiastic support, that he would select the dogs to be housed and exhibited at the Museum.

It was hoped that eventually the collection would include one or two prime specimens from each of the 85 or 90 breeds recognized by the American Kennel Club (and also samples of the various wild dog-like species). Using show catalogs as well as his knowledge of the dog world, Dr. Whitney picked the champions he wanted and wrote to their owners requesting that, when the dogs died of disease, injury or old age, they be sent to the Yale Peabody Museum. By 1943, 49 champions had been received, 12 had been mounted (skins and skeletons) and put on display, and 32 others had been promised.

World War II slowed work on the preparation of the dogs, and eventually interest in the collection waned. The mounted specimens were taken off display and replaced by the North American dioramas on the Museum’s third floor.

As Leon Whitney hoped, the collection, now mostly in storage, has become an important scientific and historic resource. Indeed, the champions dogs are among the most actively studied specimens in the mammal collections of the Museum’sDivision of Vertebrate Zoology.

— Barbara Narendra, Archivist