Studies in Sporting and Working Dogs.
This season's exhibition arranges the studio's recent commissions around a single subject: the working dog.
Not the family pet who happens to be a working breed. The dog who worked — or could work, given the country, weather, and patron a previous century would have placed him in. The pointer at attention in the field. The retriever standing patient beside a gun. The foxhound mid-stride across a winter landscape. The Border Collie at rest by the hearth after a long day of moving sheep.
The grouping is, in a sense, the oldest dog-portrait genre in Western painting. The 17th and 18th-century English sporting tradition is the great age of the working-dog portrait — the canvases of George Stubbs and Sawrey Gilpin produced specifically to honor the hunting dogs of country estates. The 19th century continued the tradition through Sir Alfred Munnings's hunting hounds and John Emms's foxhounds at rest.
What the contemporary commission does — what this exhibition collects — is the same work, in the same register, for the dogs people live with today. The breeds have evolved; the tradition has not.
These six works are the studio's selected pieces for the season. They are not for sale individually as exhibition pieces — they are commissioned pieces, owned by the families who commissioned them. They are gathered here as the season's curatorial grouping.
Each piece in the season's exhibition addresses a distinct working register — the field, the hunt, the hearth, the kennel, the household.
English Setter, hunting field.
A field dog at attention. The body taut, ears forward, focused on something off-frame the painting does not name. Warm umber palette, soft directional light, dark earthen ground. The classical sporting register at its most distilled.
Black Labrador, beside the gun.
A Labrador standing patient beside an out-of-frame hunter, ready and waiting. Warm umbers, soft sky-light from above, dark grass beneath. The dog's expression is the working expression — not eager, not bored, simply at his post.
Foxhound, mid-stride.
A hunting hound mid-stride across a winter field, breath visible in the cold air, body in motion. Warm umber palette with cool blue shadows. The painting moves at the pace of the subject.
Border Collie, at rest.
A Border Collie resting beside a stone hearth in a country interior, head down on his paws, fire glow warming his coat. Deep warm umbers, golden firelight. The working dog at the end of the working day.
Greyhound, at the threshold.
A greyhound at rest in a wooden kennel, looking out from the side opening with quiet alert attention. Soft window light, warm wood tones. The kennel-dog portrait is its own subgenre in the historical sporting tradition.
English Springer Spaniel, mid-step.
A Springer Spaniel mid-step through tall grass, ears alert, body energetic but composed. Warm umber palette, golden afternoon light from the right. The field-companion portrait — the working dog who is also a household companion.
The studio rotates the seasonal exhibition twice a year. The current grouping runs 22.05 — 4.07. Past exhibitions are noted briefly here as the season's archive grows. When a future grouping is announced, this page will rotate. The current works will move to the archive.
If your dog belongs to one of the working categories represented in this season's exhibition — the sporting hound, the retriever, the field dog, the herding dog, the hunting hound, the kennel-line dog with long history — the classical-oil register is the natural choice for his portrait.
The conventions are the same conventions Stubbs, Gilpin, Munnings, and Emms used. The register has carried serious working-dog subjects since the 17th century. The studio's modern commission renders in that register, with Mercy reviewing every portrait against the source photograph before it ships. AI-rendered, hand-reviewed, fully disclosed.
For a longer treatment of the working-dog and sporting registers within the broader museum, see the homepage Sporting Hall and Working Hounds wings, or the chronological context at Old Dog Paintings.
The studio commissions custom dog portraits in the classical-oil register, on archival Hahnemühle Fine Art paper, configured with 22 frame collections, 28 mat colors, and 4 glazing options. From $200 framed.