A Manhattan museum goes to the dogs
BACK IN MANHATTAN, KENNEL CLUB OFFERS CANINE EXHIBITS
Right around the corner from Grand Central in Manhattan, a new museum features classic oil paintings — most dating back to the Victorian era or even earlier. The portraits sit inside ornate frames perched on pristine white walls and stare back at you with puppy-dog eyes.
They are all paintings of dogs at the American Kennel Club Museum of the Dog, which opened on Feb. 8.
I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect when I arrived early one morning to explore the museum with Executive Director Alan Fausel. What I got was a mix of the aforementioned classical artwork, artifacts like a threemillion-year-old dog fossil and interactive activities like a virtual dog-training game, a screen that teaches you about every dog breed and another that takes your photo and tells you what kind of dog you look most like.
That’s the first thing I tried. I sauntered over to the big screen enthusiastically hoping to get something cute like a Yorkie or regal like Lassie was. Instead a beady-eyed little pup popped up on screen. I got rat terrier. It was early and the lighting was poor! I moved on. (In defense of the breed, upon Googling rat terriers, I’ve realized they are actually cute.)
The opening is a return home for the museum, which left New York City in 1987 and moved to the outskirts of St. Louis. Fausel hopes the museum’s new home in the heart of midtown will attract commuters and tourists passing by each day. It’s a modern glass and and white-walled duplex nestled in the corner of an office building where the American Kennel Club is located. You’ll know you’ve found it if you see the shape of a huge white wire dog all lit up in different colors through the windows.
The first floor is mostly paintings (adorable realistic paintings you almost want to reach out and pet), including a large painting of a hunting dog, by artist Percival Rosseau, right in front. Fausel considers this the showpiece of the exhibit, and it’s his personal favorite.
Fausel is a long-time art appraiser, curator (and owner of a welsh springer spaniel) who you might recognize from the show Antiques Roadshow on PBS. Fausel got into the business of dog art about 17 years ago. He was inspired one day watching the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show and began selling dog paintings and sculptures.
“It’s a niche area,” he said. “It’s not a big moneymaker but does draw a lot of interest.”
Most of the 17,000 pieces the museum owns are donated. The current exhibit showcases about 150 pieces from the Kennel Club’s collection. In six months, Fausel will switch out the pieces to show an exhibit by women artists.
As we walked through the exhibit, Fausel explained some standout pieces and displayed an uncanny ability to name the dog breeds depicted on command (pun intended). He explained that many of the paintings are so old that the breeds illustrated may not even exist anymore, or they may have changed in appearance over the years. He showed me, for example, a portrait of a pug from a few hundred years ago that looked a bit different than the pugs of today. And speaking of old dogs, I met Belgrave Joe, a famous fox terrier who is considered the father of the breed. Both of my late dogs were Jack Russell terriers, so it was an honor to meet their ancestor. He came to the American Kennel Club in 1939 and was in London before that. As one might imagine, Joe is just a skeleton now seeing as he’s about a million in dog years. But his tiny, frail bones are preserved perfectly in a glass case.
There’s a portrait of President George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush’s English springer spaniel, Millie, displayed with a letter from the late first lady. In the portrait, Millie sits proudly on the White House lawn with her red ball. In another famous dog portrait, King Edward VII’s dog Caesar is shown in mourning, resting his head on his owner’s armchair after the king’s death.
Large dog sculptures sit in different corners of the exhibit and a glass case filled with porcelain figurines ascends from the bottom floor up to the top. There’s also a Victorian child dog cart (children would sit in the wooden cart while large dogs pulled them around), an Edwardian dog house that’s fancier than anyplace I have ever lived, dog show trophies and a display about Smoky, a yorkshire terrier who served in World War II–they even have his tiny little flying outfit.
Now that old dogs were out of the way, we moved on to new tricks with the virtual dog training simulator. Here, guests can teach Molly the virtual lab how to stay, sit and catch a ball. If she does it all right, she gets a bone. The feature will likely be popular among kids, a demographic Fausel hopes to reach and introduce to fine art via a subject they tend to enjoy–dogs, of course.
“Ask kids if they want to go to Morgan or the dog museum, they’re going to say dog museum,” he said. “Oil paintings of 19th century aren’t looked at much these days, but these have an accessible subject of dogs.”
The second floor also houses the museum’s library holding hundreds of books about dogs and information about dog breeding. another subject Fauser hopes the museum will shed light on.
“I hope people leave with a better understanding of the different types of dogs, breeds and history ... as well as understanding of what we do at the American Kennel Club as far as responsible breeding and pet ownership,” he said.
On my way out we walked through the gift shop (as you do after most museum visits) and I perused the merchandise, which includes cute leftover stuffed animals from a partnership between FAO Schwarz and the American Kennel Club.
Before leaving I gave that selfie-to-dog-photo machine one last go. This time I got labrador, which I don’t think really fits me either. But then again, I’ve always been more of a cat person. American Kennel Club Museum of the Dog, 101 Park Ave., New York, N.Y., is open Tues.-Sun. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission: Adults, $15; Seniors, $10; Kids, $5.