Two separate art and literature classes that belong together: each one is great on its own but even better if you sign up for both!

For centuries, artists have been inspired by the majesty and beauty of the horse. The Yale Center for British Art has some of the greatest masterworks of equestrian art by artists from the eighteenth through the twentieth century. Paul Mellon, the British Center’s founder, was an avid collector of horse paintings as well as a breeder and racer of thoroughbreds. Foremost among the artists he collected were paintings by George Stubbs (1724-1806) who was the leading equestrian artist in eighteenth century England, and works by John Wootton (1682–1764), Robert Burnard (1800–1876), Sir Alfred J. Munnings (1878–1959), and others. This lecture will present works by the artists, their backgrounds, and the historic context of their paintings, as well as video commentary by leading scholars of equestrian art.

Join fellow fiction enthusiasts to discuss this critically acclaimed novel. The latest historical fiction from the Pulitzer Prize winning author Geraldine Brooks is based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred, Lexington. The work tackles themes of the legacy of enslavement and racism in America through intertwined stories that span three different eras in American history. The novel follows an enslaved groom and a racehorse painter in 1850 Kentucky, a gallery owner in 1954 New York City who becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting, and an Australian scientist at the Smithsonian and a Nigerian American art historian in Washington, DC in 2019, in creating a compelling and fascinating epic.