Fine Horses, Fine Art

By: Dale Leatherman

April 2007

Every April, Lexington’s Kentucky Horse Park (headquarters of the American Association of

Currier & Ives, “A Fair Field and No Favor,” 1891, lithograph, at the Kentucky Horse Park.

Equine Artists) hosts the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event, which combines dressage, cross-country and show jumping and showcases the world’s best riders to thousands of international spectators. At historic Keeneland Race Course, the annual spring race meeting and sales have begun, drawing racing fans from all over the world.

This “horse capital” is a natural draw for sporting artists such as Gwen Reardon, whose life-sized horse sculptures adorn Thoroughbred Park in the center of town, says resident Edward L. Bowen, one of the country’s foremost racing historians and a sporting art aficionado. He notes that many sporting art examples are displayed throughout Keeneland Race Course’s clubhouse and grandstand, and there are selected paintings, sculptures and trophies in the separate Keeneland Library.

Bowen recommends that visiting art collectors explore the International Museum of the Horse at the Kentucky Horse Park. Museum director Bill Cooke, a Lexington-area native who has been with the museum for 30 years, is planning a major show in 2010, when the park hosts the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. This year, from June through October, the museum will exhibit the history of harness racing, which will include one of the most complete collections of Currier & Ives trotting prints in the United States. On permanent display is an extensive and diverse collection of equestrian art and artifacts tracing centuries of man’s relationship with horses.

Miniature mounted knight and horse in full armor, a wind-up scale model that is an example of French Victorian art, at the Kentucky Horse Park.

The museum recently became a Smithsonian affiliate, one of only two in Kentucky with this distinction (the other is the Headley-Whitney decorative arts museum, also in Lexington). “The Smithsonian has a huge collection, 99 percent of which is in storage,” Cooke says. “Now that our museum is qualified, we’re talking to them about sending us treasures that have not seen the light of day for years.” Collectors should also schedule a visit to the University of Kentucky Art Museum, which houses an inventory of nearly 4,000 European and American sculptures, paintings, photographs and decorative arts.
“The horse business is healthy and has been for some time,” says Greg Ladd, owner of the Cross Gate Gallery on Main Street. “That’s the way most people in central Kentucky make their living. They, and the horse people who come to Lexington, make for a thriving art scene.” Ladd, who specializes in British and American sporting art, opened his gallery in 1974. He also offers pieces by contemporary British figurative artists he has discovered during his buying trips overseas.

“Cross Gate is Lexington’s bellwether for sporting art,” says Bowen. “Among the artists in Ladd’s stable is Andre Pater, the key sporting art painter in America today. Pater paints the entire range of sporting art—portraits, scenes, jockeys.” His latest works include portraits of racing great Smarty Jones, a stallion at Lexington’s Three Chimneys Farm. (Ladd recommends also visiting Gallery B and Ann Tower Gallery.)

Unexpected treasures can be found in Lexington’s antiques shops as well, says Bowen, who recently discovered a rare Thomas Fearnley painting from the early 1800s. Before you visit, log onto the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau’s Web site, which lists more than 200 antiques shops, an indication of what horse country can offer to collectors.

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Dale Leatherman is the editor-at-large of the equestrian Web site EquiSearch.com.

Deborah Butterfield, “EastWest,” 2002, bronze, at the University of Kentucky Museum.

LEXINGTON MUST-VISITS

►Cross Gate Gallery
509 East Main St.
859.233.3856
www.crossgategallery.com

►Headley-Whitney Museum
4435 Old Frankfort Pike
859.255.6653
www.headley-whitney.org

►Keeneland Race Course
4201 Versailles Rd.
800.456.3412
www.keeneland.com

►Kentucky Horse Park
International Museum of the Horse, American Association of Equine Artists
4089 Iron Works Pkwy.
800.678.8813
www.kyhorsepark.com

►Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau
301 East Vine St.
800.845.3959
www.visitlex.com

►University of Kentucky Art Museum
Rose St. and Euclid Ave.
859.257.5716
www.uky.edu/ArtMuseum