SPORTING

For the Love of Labs

A new exhibition at the National Sporting Library & Museum in Middleburg, Virginia, pays tribute to the beloved Labrador retriever. The English artist Reuben Ward Binks (1880-1950) painted sporting dogs, primarily Labs, throughout England and America in the 1920s and 1930s, when the breed was rising in popularity around the world. More than forty of Binks’s original watercolors are now on display, capturing the dogs’ regal profiles and eager-to-please eyes, whether retrieving a mallard or carrying a newspaper. The exhibition runs from August 15 through September 30, 2018. Preview the exhibition here.

By CJ Lotz Diego

August 15, 2018

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Reuben Ward Binks, Field Trial CH. Banchory Bolo, 1921

Photo: Courtesy of National Sporting Library & Museum, Bequest of Elizabeth D. Clark, 2017

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Reuben Ward Binks, Dorando

Photo: Courtesy of National Sporting Library & Museum, Bequest of Elizabeth D. Clark, 2017

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Reuben Ward Binks, Triple F.T. CH. Balmuto Jock, six time F.T. CH. Banchory Bright, and dual F.T. CH. Kirkmahoe Rover; two Labs and a Spaniel, 1927

Photo: Courtesy of National Sporting Library & Museum, Bequest of Elizabeth D. Clark, 2017

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Reuben Ward Binks, F.T. CH. Withington Piper, 1925

Photo: Courtesy of National Sporting Library & Museum, Bequest of Elizabeth D. Clark, 2017

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Reuben Ward Binks, Dual CH. Banchory Bolo, 1922

Photo: Courtesy of National Sporting Library & Museum, Bequest of Elizabeth D. Clark, 2017

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Reuben Ward Binks, Chocolate Lab with Mallard near Water

Photo: Courtesy of National Sporting Library & Museum, Bequest of Elizabeth D. Clark, 2017

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Reuben Ward Binks, 1933 CH. Banchory Bolo, Corbie and Beningbrough Tangle, 1933

Photo: Courtesy of National Sporting Library & Museum, Bequest of Elizabeth D. Clark, 2017

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Reuben Ward Binks, Banchory Lucky, Banchory Dipper, Banchory Rando, Banchory Bolo, Banchory Bruco and Ilderton Ben; Six Vignette Head Studies, 1921

Photo: Courtesy of National Sporting Library & Museum, Bequest of Elizabeth D. Clark, 2017

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Reuben Ward Binks, Thank you Snipe

Photo: Courtesy of National Sporting Library & Museum, Bequest of Elizabeth D. Clark, 2017

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Reuben Ward Binks, Yellow Lab Retrieving a Drake Mallard from the River

Photo: Courtesy of National Sporting Library & Museum, Bequest of Elizabeth D. Clark, 2017

CJ Lotz Diego is Garden & Gun’s senior editor. A staffer since 2013, she wrote G&G’s bestselling Bless Your Heart trivia game, edits the Due South travel section, and covers gardens, books, and art. Originally from Eureka, Missouri, she graduated from Indiana University and now lives in Charleston, South Carolina, where she tends a downtown pocket garden with her florist husband, Max.

A magazine cover of a garden

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