Friends of Sporting Art is presenting a Zoom Lecture entitled “COLLECTING & UNDERSTANDING BRITISH SPORTING PRINTS” Presented by Dr. Mitchell Merling at 12:00 Noon on September 24th.  Our timing for this Lecture was determined so that we might share viewing this Lecture with our friends at the British Sporting Art Trust as there is a 5-hour time difference. For more information email:

friendsofsportingart@gmail.com

Mitchell Merling is a highly accomplished curator with a reputation for creating paradigm-shifting museum acquisitions, installations, and exhibitions. Trained at Vassar College and Brown University, he has held major positions at Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, Ringling Museum of Art, and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, as well as numerous fellowships at National Gallery, Washington, DC.   A paintings specialist, he also studied, acquired, and exhibited European works on paper, sculpture, and decorative arts as well as Asian art made for the European market and Colonial Latin American art.   As a museum curator, he enacted complete reinstallations of collections ranging from the European Middle Ages to the mid-20^th century.  Some of his exhibitions include major international loan shows of French floral still lifes, Auguste Rodin, and Napoleon’s court art, and collection-focused exhibitions of Faberge, Felix Bracquemond, and the Paul Mellon’s British sporting art collection at the VMFA. He secured the gift of Bunny Mellon’s Jean Schlumberger jewelry and objects. His current projects include Wenceslaus Hollar’s prints, a historical study of American museums expansions from the 1950s to present, and a translation of Marco Boschini’s Venetian-languageart-theoretical treatises.