Portrait for the Estate

Painters have included dogs on their canvases for centuries. Last year's Best in Show: the Dog in Art from The Renaissance to Today at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston attempted to "explore the use of dog imagery to illustrate major cultural and social concerns in Western culture." [NOTE: click on VIEW THE SHOW, it is great fun!]

Animal portraiture was becoming increasingly popular by the beginning of the 18th Century. British animal portraiture reached great heights through the anatomically detailed works of George Stubbs, the naturalism of Thomas Grainsborough, and the romanticism of Sir Edwin Landseer. In the colonial United States, travelling portrait painters, like Amni Phillips, were paid by wealthy families to portray their dogs partaking in everyday life.



We photograph our dogs, collect breed-specific auto decals, mugs, afghans and more. We blog about our dogs. The ultimate expression of how much our dogs mean to us can be captured in custom portraiture, as it has been done for centuries. This lush portrait, RAINEY, is an incredible work of art created by Sherrie Rose (srosepaints@yahoo.com). She works from photographs and creates manor-worthy pieces in an old-world style. RAINEY is acrylic on canvas, 48" x 48" unframed.

Dog-Friendly Gallery in Dog-Friendly City

Yes, we are a dog-friendly gallery! Of course! (thanks for asking, Jake and Just Harry ... come and visit H-Mom, she would be thrilled!)

Everyone on the street is talking about planning a "Yappy Hour" for the downtown Fort Lauderdale shopping district - Las Olas Boulevard. "Yappy Hour" would feature a hundred adoptable dogs from the Humane Society, wearing "Adopt Me" bandanas; "dog specials" at the restaurants with dog-friendly outdoor seating; and, "Dogs Welcome" signs in the windows of participating merchants, along with bowls of biscuits, drinking water, and poopbags (H-Mom added that last one).

Does anyone else live in a city that does something similar? We think it would be great fun if Fort Lauderdale "went to the dogs" for a day.

H-Mom tried to think of an artist in our gallery - Las Olas Fine Arts - who paints DOGS, and she found some wonderful paintings by Dominic Besner, an incredibly talented young Canadian artist quickly earning international acclaim:

Greyhounds racing ...

Roulement de tambour pour une course de 3, Mixed Media on Canvas

Dog in a tutu? It looks like a dancing greyhound:

Tutu des Flandres, Mixed Media on Canvas

There was an awesome huge painting with three Borzoi in the background, but H-Mom cannot find the image. The gallery represents very contemporary artists. The best thing about the gallery, from a dog's point of view, is the highly polished cement floor - always cool when it's hot outside!