Saturday, July 15, 2023 10:00 AM -Saturday, September 16, 2023 5:00 PM

The relationship we have with man’s best friend is a two-way street.  But in art, our canine companions are usually included as an accessory for their owners or as a symbolic reference. Images of dogs can be found in prehistoric cave art and on ancient Egyptian monuments. Today, dogs are so much a part of our lives that they are often overlooked in master works by artists such as Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Manet, Dali, and countless others. Man’s best friend has also inspired prose and poetry through the ages.  James Thurber, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Steinbeck, Lord Byron, and Woodrow Wilson all memorialized dogs in print. And of course, Snoopy and Hank the Cowdog can speak for themselves. Pairing famous quotes about dogs with individual photographs, a favorite part of the first Best Friends exhibition at The Grace in 2009, returns by popular demand. 

William Wegman, Fay Ray, 1988 silver gelatin print Collection of The Grace Museum, Gift of Bill Wright