The Art of the Hunt

The other is titled Not Today Old Girl, by Joseph Kernan, and it tells a story of a mother with young pups, having to stay at home while the sire is being leashed to go on a hunt. In the foreground, the pack’s bitch is walking away and toward her brood of puppies. Yet her body language—and even the look on her face—show visible disappointment at being overlooked. It’s a painting that could only have been created by an artist who understood the subtleties of dog behavior.

Whether it’s intentional or not, Ivester runs his plantation in a way that mimics the nostalgic scenes depicted in his collection of paintings. “What I like most about the plantation is the same thing I like about the paintings—there’s a timelessness to both. We hunt using a mule-drawn wagon. If you took a black-and-white photograph of a hunt, it might look the same as it did a hundred years ago. While the plantation is a very modern farming operation, the timelessness reflected in the hunts and the paintings makes it a very special place.”