Mr Ron Clark is a photographer in Great Britain with a delightful passion for photographing pub signs. Among his archives are quite a few with horse themes and many with horseshoes, farriers, heavy horses (always my favorite) and related namesakes, usually accompanied by interesting or downright beautiful artwork and ornate brackets, signposts and lanterns.
Over the next few months, The Hoof Blog will be showcasing some of these unusual bits of artistry, and we invite you to send in your favorites as well. It is very kind of Mr Clark to open images from his collection to viewing on the blog.
And there are some real beauties, as well as some intriguing titles. They'd make a beautiful book.
I'd love to know who paints the pub signs and if there are rules to follow or if they all just happen to be tastefully done.
The Farriers Arms is quite a modern pub sign and is a reproduction of the famous painting, "Shoeing the Bay Mare"; the well-known image was originally created by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer in 1844 and is probably the most universal farrier image in the world. Landseer's other horse and dog paintings are beautiful, too.
Get ready for a long (artistic) pub crawl around the British Isles and, if we're lucky, other places in the world! Email hoofblog@hoofcare.com with your favorites or leave a comment below.
The Farriers Arms, by the way, is in Worcester, England.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
First Stop on the Hoof Blog's Pub (Art) Crawl: The Farriers Arms
