A piece of artwork speaks to the soul in a fashion even the most exquisite photographs cannot accomplish. Sulkowski’s paintings do that for me.
The visual aspects of life astream and afield have long captured the fancy of discerning sportsmen. Witness, for example, the era and area I personally know best. Mine is an enduring fascination with early Victorian artist William Cornwallis Harris and his breathtakingly beautiful books, The Wild Sports of Southern Africa (1839) and Portraits of the Game and Wild Animals of Southern Africa (1840); the lovely work of late-Victorian artist John Guille Millais in A Breath from the Veldt (1899); the exquisite and largely overlooked efforts of Piotr Stachiewicz in illustrating Count Joseph Potocki’s lavish Sport in Somaliland (1900); or the versatile and consistently eye-catching endeavors of the artist/explorer Thomas Baines (who also did considerable work on Australian settings and subjects).
Alongside these, with a different geographical setting and quite different subject matter, comes a veritable bevy of American artists whose careers range from the latter portion of the 19th century well into the 20th century—A.B. Frost, Roland Clark, Francis Lee Jaques, William Schaldach, Frank Benson, and maybe the greatest of them all, Lynn Bogue Hunt—and you open another door to a world of breathtaking beauty.
On Point
Nor should the likes of Wilhelm Kuhnert, Carl Rungius, and a personal favorite, Ned Smith, be forgotten. In truth, before you even enter the latter half of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st, you can fill shelves with biographies, coffee-table books and other tomes devoted to these and countless other notables.
My point is simple—fine sporting art never palls. It is evergreen, ever appealing. Any time one discovers a new talent of exceptional ability, it’s akin to finding a prized Derrydale Press original on the dust-laden shelves of some back-alley bookstore or miraculously having a gun-shy pointer somehow transition into the dog of a lifetime.
For me, Joseph H. Sulkowski is such a discovery. Until the appearance of The Sporting Life: The Art of Joseph H. Sulkowski (2017) with accompanying text by Brooke Chilvers, I knew nothing about the man or his artistic endeavors, although I was familiar with the literary efforts of Chilvers. What a find! The 240-page book, rich with scores of full-color examples of Sulkowski’s work and photographs of him in his studio, opens with various pieces of narrative coverage—succinct thoughts from the artist, a one-page look at “The New ‘Old Master’” by Lorian Peralta- Ramos, and then coverage mixing the commentary of Chilvers with examples of the artist’s work. From page 55 onward we get page after delightful page, plate after fetching plate, of Sulkowski’s work.
Winchester Quail Hunt
The book is of coffee-table dimensions, with the dust-jacket illustration of a covey “find” setting an eye-catching tone for what is to follow. Certainly it richly merits a place on a strategically placed table in the discerning sportsman’s study, but before that step it’s a work to be read and viewed, sampled and savored in a meditative setting. To do anything less is a rank injustice.
Sulkowski’s brushes paint broad strokes in terms of subject matter, but to my eye, certain subjects stand out as his strongest points. They include horses—never mind that equine art is not something holding great personal appeal to a fellow who long ago realized he doesn’t particular care for horses (and rest assured, the sentiments are reciprocal, with a couple of memorable train wrecks on horseback as testament); dogs (not only bird dogs but hounds); still lifes; wildlife; and plenty of hunting and fishing.
There are color plates aplenty in the final three quarters of the book. Gundogs garner the most coverage (more than a third of the entire book), but there are sections on hunting and fishing, wildlife and horses as well. The book wraps up with a listing of galleries and exhibitions currently displaying his work or where it has appeared in the past, coverage of his major awards and mention of the organizations of which he is a member.
Foxhound Pup
This is no place for an in-depth critique of the man as an artist. Quite frankly, although I have long enjoyed sporting art, have a few originals adorning the walls of my study and own hundreds of books on sporting art, I lack the expertise to do so. I’m merely an avid sportsman whose perspective falls somewhere between what Will Shakespeare offers in Love’s Labours Lost—“Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye”—and the oft-quoted words from “Ode to a Grecian Urn” by John Keats— “Beauty is truth; truth beauty.” In other words, I know what I like, and for me, that’s pleasing art.
I will, with the caveat offered in the preceding paragraph firmly in mind, offer one thought that struck me repeatedly in this book. Sometimes the artist’s brush, in a magic defying description in words, provides the viewer with an image that transcends the literal. That is to say, a piece of artwork speaks to the soul in a fashion even the most exquisite photographs cannot accomplish. Some of Sulkowski’s paintings do that for me. If you can look at the brace of Llewellyn setters on page 166, their eyes agleam with the intensity brought on by the heady aroma of birds, or view the two-page spread of mixed hunting and fishing paraphernalia on pages 182-83 and not feel a mental jolt or a bit of brightness, then maybe, just maybe, there’s a hole in your sporting soul.
If you find just one or two images to stir your spirit (and I confidently predict the count will be far higher), then this is a book well worth the purchase price. Like some of Robert Ruark’s finest stories or personal recollections of one of those magical days when everything went right on a trout stream or in a duel with a longbeard in the greening-up woods of spring, your mind and your eyes will return to favorite paintings time and again.
Indeed, when I finish up this review, the book will go straight to a place on my shelves where it will rub shoulders with A.B. Frost and Lynn Bogue Hunt.
For me, that’s hallowed ground.
The Sporting Life is a celebration of gundogs and horses, hunting and fishing as expressed through the rich and exuberant paintings of Joseph Sulkowski.
Acclaimed as one of America’s premier dog and sporting artists, Sulkowski shares his personal conversation with the outdoor life in a style of Poetic Realism. Influenced and guided by the hands of the Old Masters, he creates fluid brushstrokes that imbue his canvases with a compelling blend of light, atmosphere, and spatial effects that bring his passion for the sporting life into vivid focus for the viewer.
Whether it’s still-lifes, dog paintings or scenes of hunters and anglers, Joseph Sulkowski derives his inspiration from personal contact with the natural world. He carries out his visions through a lifelong discipline to his craft in which hand-ground paints, carefully prepared oils and varnishes, and handcrafted linen canvases and gessoed panels play a vital role in the quality of each work of art.
All this and more about the immensely gifted artist is detailed by author Brooke Chilvers, one of the foremost experiets on wildlife and sporting art. Altogether, the large-format, 240 pages book features more than 180 paintings and dozens of sketches. Buy Now
