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BEVERLEY BRYANT: A Portrait of An Artist
BEVERLEY BRYANT: A Portrait of An Artist
By Vicky Moon
Beverley Bryant recalls when she was “itty bitty” she began painting and drawing horses with her mother, Beverley McConnell, an artist and horse lover. Young Beverley studied portraiture in Paris, New York and Washington but didn’t do much until 1978 when Secretariat won the Triple Crown.
“I’d exercised racehorses in Middleburg for two years and that experience plus Secretariat’s spectacular performances made it impossible not to paint him,” Beverley told Country ZEST. Her career began with painting portraits of racehorses in action, reliving the thrill and images of galloping them. “The images were head on or slightly turned. That seemed the most powerful and dramatic,” she added.
Beverley always thought a portrait of a horse should show him doing his job: running really fast or jumping extremely high. She had experimented with creating a 3D effect before, making the subject defy the surface of a flat canvas.
Her goal was to make her work appear as if the horses were leaping off the canvas. “I find that extremely exciting,” she said. “I attempted to do probably the most difficult task in horse painting: a great likeness coupled with powerful anatomy coming straight at you in correct perspective with extreme detail in the front that diminishes towards the back to make him jump off the canvas.”
Her work has been published in several books: an illustrated history of the Kentucky Derby with 109 drawings and paintings of winners from 1875 through 1984 for Portraits in Roses and an updated version in 1993 with eleven more winners as Portraits of Kentucky Derby Winners.
She bought a farm near the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Florida in 1991 and began painting portraits of many famous jumpers, including 13 members of the U.S. Olympic team, expressing the lift and power she had felt jumping her own horses.
She has also returned to working with long-time friends in Middleburg such as Karen Crane on her beloved hunter, Georgetown Burning. A former race horse turned field hunter, he was purchased two years ago, when Karen retired from hunting. He now leads the Middleburg Hunt with Joint Master Penny Denegre.
“George has done well,” Penny noted. “The more I hunt him the more I love him.”
Contact: facebook.com/bryantstudio, beverletbryant40@gmail.com and 561-440-0009.
