The Odyssey of An Artist
"From the very beginning, being an artist was my first choice." You can tour the most discriminating galleries, visit the most thoughtfully-curated exhibitions. As you walk these clean, well-lighted places, you stop, as much from duty as interest, to study the artwork...
Rambling Boy and an Island in the Sun
He was a rambling boy. They called him Kid Carolina. Dick Reynolds, officially Robert Joshua Reynolds Jr., born to wealth and privilege. He was the eldest son of the North Carolina tobacco magnate of the same name, the creator of Prince Albert pipe tobacco and Camel...
Eleven Timely and Timeless Sculptors
No art form can touch all people with the same force, but it would be hard to imagine a medium with more universal appeal than the bronze statue. It can be sculpted into a delicate hummingbird resting on a tabletop, heaped and hewn into a life-size grizzly guarding a...
Jim Kasper On Sentimental Journeys
It seems ironic that Jim Kasper would look at any painter's life with envy. It would only seem natural to assume that the prime source of inspiration for an animal artist would be, well, animals. And Minnesota artist Jim Kasper has indeed been inspired by a host of...
The Chance and Challenge for Kobus Moller
"To me, you should judge the painting by the emotion it creates." About a year ago, South African artist Kobus Moller arrived at a crossroads in his career. Though demand for his work was high and he was making a comfortable living from his art, Kobus was experiencing...
Frank Benson Inspirations
When Frank Benson decided to hang a dozen or so intaglio prints, most of sporting subjects, in the 1915 exhibition of his paintings at the Guild of Boston Artists, he unwittingly put his career on a new path and founded a new artistic genre: the sporting print. One of...
Larry Norton and The Searching Spirit
Larry Norton's subjects are not only anatomically proportionate but portrayed in body positions as they appear in the wild. One notes the malevolent cast of a lurking croc, the rubble of scattered bones, virtually hears the forlorn call of the turtle dove. Terror...
Southeastern Wildlife Exposition 2023
Sporting Classics will be in attendance at the 2023 Southeastern Wildlife Exposition (SEWE) this coming February - here's what you need to get started! Whether you are looking for SEWE's Brochure, FAQ's, Raffles, Tickets or Hotels, you can begin — or continue — to...
First Snowfall of the Gray Days
When I remember my best days of hunting, the memories dawn mostly cloudy and gray. I'm thinking about the gray days and cloudy skies preceding a storm. Every hunter knows that animals sense and instinctively move in advance of a storm. And I think the same urge stirs...
The Villain of East Africa – John Patterson
Whatever the goal, the safari became a recipe for disaster. The great elephant rounded a clump of acacia and swung toward the two hunters. Drying blood made dark stains down its wrinkled shoulder and neck, but despite its wounds, the big animal moved deceptively fast...