The Earl Of Dogs

from Dog World Magazine - December 2022/January 2023

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Picture Perfect Pooches

– David Margan A close friend of mine, Ben Hawke, is an inveterate traveller who was recently in London and while there he went along to the UK Kennel Club’s headquarters in the plush environment of Mayfair and to their Art Gallery and Library.

The UK Kennel Club was founded in 1873 and it’s art gallery contains canine related artefacts that date from the firstcentury up to the present day with special focus on works from the 19thand 20thcenturies.

Their oldest item is a Celtic coin dating from AD 8 – AD 41, which is decorated with the image of a Hound while one painting dated 1855, shows the very early beginnings of dog showing.

Ben’s reasons for his Mayfair excursion were simple. While there is a family mixed breed dog somewhere whose name is ‘Essie’, Ben is not part of the pure bred dog world but comes from a long line of his family who were – George Earl being one of the very first members of the UK Kennel Club.

Hanging on the walls of the Club’s Art Gallery and Library are paintings by six artists from four generations of the Earl family. I asked Ben why almost all these generations of the Earls painted dogs, his reply was simple, “Because they just loved them!”

The gallery’s current exhibition, ‘The Art of the Earl Family’ features the work of George Earl and Maud Earl, together with Thomas William Earl, Thomas Percy Earl, Jack Earl and Maris Earl Tomaszewski.

It’s a celebration of dogs, art and history. This exhibition is the largest compilation of works from the family displayed together in history and provides an immersive glimpse into this worldrenowned dynasty of canine artists.

Above: Champion Dogs Of England – George Earl circa 1860 As described in the exhibition catalogue: “Throughout art history dogs were depicted mainly in hunting scenes, as illustrating the social status of members of the aristocracy, as a lap dog, or sometimes as a personal friend. However, George blazed a trail by making an important contribution to the dog in art at a time when there was increasing interest in developing breeds and breeding pedigree dogs. His rise to artistic prominence paralleled the increasing popularity of dog shows and organised field trials.”

The UK Kennel Club Exhibition includes works loaned by the Royal family and the exhibition catalogue describes the Earls thus, His paintings were regularly hung in the Royal Academy and one painting sold for 75,000 pounds. That would be over $19.5 million Australia dollars in today’s money!

And, as is what appears to be another family tradition, George loved travel and adventure. He joined the yacht, ‘Pandora’, for a four month Artic voyage during which George made many paintings and watercolour sketches, recording seascapes at various locations along the route.

“The Earls were the first family of the dog in art during the 19th and early 20th Century. Considerably talented, they were synonymous with portraits of dogs during the sentimental age of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.”

George Earl is probably the most significant, in that he not only painted wonderful dog portraits but was engaged in the burgeoning world of pure breds. Below: The Field Trial Meeting – George Earl

George had a daughter Alice Maud Earl who defied the tenants of a male dominated Victorian society that considered women as no more than adornments and went on to become a talented and famous artist.

Her Dad was her first teacher and insisted that Maud not waste the oil paint till she’d mastered drawing and animal anatomy, “It is for this reason that I have been able to hold my own place among the best of dog painters— no one has ever touched me in my knowledge of anatomy.” * The exhibition catalogue notes; “This early training stood Maud in good stead, for she was unsurpassed among her peers in the depiction of the canine anatomy and quickly gained a reputation as a Lady Landseer or Rosa Bonheur of the canine world. She rapidly developed a select clientele of very important dog fanciers both in the United Kingdom and overseas.” Above: Lonely 11 & Reader – Maud Earl 1 dog or an African dog.”** Her collection,‘ Terriers and Toys’ included a portrait of ‘Jack’ the late Irish Terrier of King Edward VII, five hundred people turned up for the private viewing.

George had a disciplined work ethic painting daily from 10 till 4 that he also passed on to Maud.

It’s no coincidence that Earl’s rise in popularity corresponded with Queen Victoria’s patronage of canine companionship. Victoria kept 70 to 100 mostly purebred but not always perfect pet dogs and also commissioned Maud to produce a number of paintings of her brood.

As the exhibition catalogue states, “Keeping purebred dogs became an obligatory social distinction of the upper crust. Dog fancying gave rise to competitive show trials, such as, “Best looking and best matched brace of Pointers and Setters,” and conformance shows such as Crufts, started in 1886 by Charles Cruft, a former dog biscuit salesman and the son of a London jeweller.” In Maud’s first one woman show, in 1897 at London’s Graves Galleries, her 70 dog portraits represented an astounding 48 varieties of canines. Asked if she’d painted every kind of dog, she confessed, “I have never painted a Mexican hairless Sadly ‘Jack’ came to an untimely end; reputedly by choking to death on some food, it was the second royal pooch to die suddenly after being painted by Maud. But if it was good enough for a Queen, “soon, every breeder and owner of a champion dog wanted to immortalize their winner with an Earl portrait.”** Her fame grew and in 1908, Earl moved

Below: ‘Jack’ King Edward’s VII Irish Terrier

her studio to Paris, where she had further success painting portraits of packs of French hunting hounds.

Maud also stepped into the world of advertising producing illustrations for James Buchanan’s Black & White whisky advertisements***, using a Retriever carrying a white ptarmigan, a medium-sized game bird in the grouse family. Her work also helped sell Messrs Noble’s Explosive cartridges and Talbot car Radiators.

Maud, herself, was described as “a slim gentlewoman of determination who wore a monocle and who worked for and signed the 1899 Declaration in favour of Women’s Suffrage.”** Above: Maud painting ‘Nissa’ the Leopard in 1937.

her hand at interior design and painting all sorts of animals.

In 1937 Maud was photographed in Los Angeles sketching, ‘Nissa’, the leopard which appeared with Katharine Hepburn in the film ‘Bringing Up Baby.’

Her career spanned sixty years and she left behind what many would believe to be an unsurpassed contribution to the world of canine art. Her work also hangs in the American Kennel Club Museum in New York and the David Roche Foundation in Adelaide also have paintings by both George and Maud.

Maud Earl died in New York in 1943.

Ben’s most immediate connection to this legendary generations of artists was his grandfather, Jack Earl, who had the most extraordinary life.

In the early 1900’s a contingent of the Earls emigrated to Australia looking for adventure, on the way Jack Earl was born in South Africa. They ended up in the Torres Strait where Jack’s dad, Frank, became the administrator of the tiny Strait’s island, Darnley Island.

There, Jack spent time on the pearl luggers of the waters of the Torres and discovered a passion for sailing that in 1947 saw him set off in his 44 foot wooden yacht, ‘Kathleen Gillett’ to become only the

Then Maud went off to America where she lived out her days. She rapidly set to work painting a number of the American canine aristocracy, became a member of high society and very successfully tried

second Australian to circumnavigate the globe.

In the family tradition Jack had gone to art school in Sydney, became a commercial artist and went on to be one of the 20th Century’s most distinguished marine artists.

In 1994 Jack was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for his services to sailing and art.

The logbook of his global passage, now held in Sydney’s Mitchell Library, is an extraordinarily beautiful manuscript both in its calligraphy and illustration. Though he never painted dogs, some of his maritime paintings are also part of the ‘The Art of the Earl Family’ exhibition.

It’s a heritage Ben Hawke is extremely proud of even if the family’s artistic genes skipped Ben’s hands, “I’d have trouble drawing a stick figure!”, he told me.

Marianne Walker Art Collection Curator Kennel Club Art Gallery said; “I was fortunate to meet Ben Hawke when he visited the exhibition with his family and friends and it was a great pleasure to Describing six generations of achievement would take pages but there’s one more Earl to mention.

Maris Earl was Jack Earl’s daughter who also studied art and became both a painter and sculptor. In the 1960’s Maris became Head of Design at Festival Records, designing covers for world-wide hits such as Johnny O’Keefe’s ,‘Shout’, and many of her original cover designs are now in collection of the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.

What a world.

REFERENCES: Here’s a link to the ‘The Art of the Earl Family’. https://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/about-us/ facilities/the-kennel-club-art-gallery-andlibrary/the-kennel-club-art-gallery/

*All excerpts from ‘The Art of The Earl Family‘ Catalogue © The Kennel Club, with thanks to Gallery Curator, Catherine Owen. ** From ‘Every painting a dog’s tale’, byBrooke Chilvers published in Gray’s Sporting Journal August 28, 2014 *** Advertisement for James Buchanan’s Black and White whisky by Maud Earl © Private Collection

**** Photograph of Maud Earl painting the Leopard, Nissa by Acme News Pictures 1937. The Kennel Club Art Gallery © Heidi Hudson / The Kennel Club

The Field Trial, an engraving from the original painting by George Earl, c.1882 The Kennel Club

Champion Dogs of England, oil on canvas by George Earl, c. 1860 The Kennel Club Lonely II and Ch Reader, oil on canvas by Maud Earl, 1895 The Kennel Club Ch Longmynd Myfanwy and Ch Longmynd Megan, oil on canvas by Maud Earl, 1906 The Kennel Club

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