The Center for British Art was established with the gift of Paul Mellon (1907–1999), who took his serious and life-long passion for horse riding and racehorse breeding into an equally serious collection of rare books and manuscripts on British sport. Podeschi’s volume on the Paul Mellon Collection provides the most extensive reference list (Sport in Art and Books : The Paul Mellon Collection, 1981). Some of the Mellon Collection items also are found in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the National Sporting Library and Museum.
John Dalby, ca 1840. “Foxhunting: Clearing a Bank” Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
For scholars, the Yale Center for British Art houses a Reference Library with extensive British sporting art research materials. Reference holdings can be accessed through the Center’s collection search and through Orbis, Yale’s online library catalogue.
John Wootton, 1723. “Lamprey, with His Owner Sir William Morgan, at Newmarket” Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Egerton, Judy, Tate Gallery, and Yale Center for British Art. British Sporting and Animal Paintings, 1655-1867 : A Catalogue. Sport in Art and Books. Millbank, London: Tate Gallery for the Yale Center for British Art, 1978.
Podeschi, John B. Books on the Horse and Horsemanship: Riding, Hunting & Racing; 1400-1941. Volume: Sport in Art and Books. The Paul Mellon Collection. London: Tate Gallery, 1981.
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and Judy Egerton. British Sporting Paintings : The Paul Mellon Collection in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Richmond: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 1985.
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and Malcolm Cormack. Country Pursuits : British, American, and French Sporting Art from the Mellon Collections in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Richmond: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2007.
