GEORGE W. CONSTABLE
George Constable is a proper Baltimore lawyer and sportsman who fulfills a part of his sense of civic obligation as a trustee of the Baltimore Museum of Art. As such he has been instrumental in launching an ambitious and unique venture: an international center for art based on sport.
It is housed in a wing of the museum given by Mrs. William Woodward Sr. on the dissolution of Belair, the family's Maryland stud farm. With it went her husband's large collection of horse portraits (including Nashua) and funds to maintain the wing. This, in turn, gave Constable, a self-styled conservative in matters of taste, the opportunity to put into practice some heretofore private thoughts: "Museums should organize art around matter which interests people. Sport as art will bring the public, the artist and the museum together."
The subject of the Woodward Wing's first exhibition is shooting and fishing. From museums, galleries and such private sporting collectors as F. Ambrose Clark and Mrs. William Bliss have come canvases by Henri Rousseau, Thomas Eakins, Washington Allston and Winslow Homer (Mr. Constable is standing under Homer's Right and Left). In the offing are shows on sailing, fox hunting and cockfighting, all local and traditional themes in sport's universal language.
PHOTO
ELLIS J. MALASHUK