Franklin. B. Voss (1880-1953) (artist and engraver)
Hill Prince
Sporting Gallery and Bookshop, New York: 1951
Hand-colored engraving
Signed in pencil, lower left margin: F.B. Voss
Numbered in ink, lower right margin 17/260
Blindstamp lower right margin
13.5 x 16.75 inches, plate mark
18 x 21.75 inches, overall
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Hill Prince
Racehorse Engraving by Franklin Voss
Racehorse Engraving by Franklin Voss
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 Artist's signature, lower left |
 Edition number and blindstamp, lower right |
Title, lower center
Full sheet
Portrait of the prizewinning Hall of Fame thoroughbred racehorse Hill Prince (1947-1970), published the year after he was named the 1950 Horse of the Year. He walks on a sunlit racetrack ridden by a jockey in blue-and-white striped racing silks. Although not identified in the caption, the jockey's distinctive profile appears to be a portrait of the American Thoroughbred Horse Racing Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Arcaro (1916-1997), who rode Hill Prince in the 1950 Triple Crown races. The subtitle in the lower margin gives information about the horse's pedigree: "Bay Horse, 1947. By Imp. Princequillo -- out of Hildene, by Bubbling Over. Bred and owned by Christopher T. Chenery."
Hill Prince was born at Christopher T. Chenery's Virginia horse farm, also the birthplace of other stakes winners, including Secretariat. In 1950s Triple Crown races, Hill Prince placed second in the 1950 Kentucky Derby and won the Preakness. Later that year, he also won several major races, including the American Derby, the Dwyer Stakes and the Jockey Club Gold Cup. Overall, he amassed a record of 30 starts and 17 wins, and earnings of over $420,000. After retiring, he sired 23 stakes winners and three champions before dying in 1970. Hill Prince was elected to the racing Hall of Fame in 1991 and is ranked 75th in Thoroughbred Champions: Top 100 Racehorses of the 20th Century compiled by the racing periodical The Blood-Horse. The annual Hill Prince Stakes, inaugurated in 1975 and still run annually each June at Belmont Park, was named for him.
Franklin Brooke Voss combined his family background in equestrian sports and art, becoming a prolific painter of horses and sporting subjects. Born in New York City, he grew up riding and foxhunting, and participated in both flat and steeplechase races as a young man. He also studied art at the Art Student's League in New York. There he received a thorough grounding in anatomy, an interest that is evident in the naturalistic portrayal of both horses and humans. He insisted on working from life and disdained painting from photographs. Socially well-connected, he completed more than 500 commissions of race horses, hunting horses and equestrian scenes in the period between 1920 and 1950, including portraits of famed racehorses Man O' War and Citation and numerous paintings for members of the Whitney and Vanderbilt families. His work is in the collection of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York and he was the subject of an exhibition and catalog at the Museum of Hounds and Hunting in Leesburg, Virginia, in 1999.
The Sporting Gallery and Bookshop specialized in sporting books, paintings, prints and carvings by prominent sporting artists such as A.J. Dando, Paul Brown and Franklin Voss. The shop, located at 38 East 52nd Street in Manhattan, was founded in 1935 by Melville E. Stone II (1905-1989) several years after graduating from Yale University. Mr. Stone came from a publishing family in Chicago, where his grandfather, Melville E. Stone, founded the Chicago Daily News and co-founded the Associated Press. He closed the business in 1964 and retired to Maine.
Full publication information: "Publish'd and Copyright'd by the Sporting Gallery and Bookshop, Inc., New York, 1951."
References:
"Eddie Arcaro." Wikipedia. 28 February 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Arcaro (26 April 2013).
"Hill Prince Stakes." Wikipedia. 18 April 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_Prince_Stakes (26 April 2013).
"Melville E. Stone II." Chicago Tribune. 30 March 1989. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1989-03-30/news/8903300928_1_nephew-chicago-navy-commander (26 April 2013).
"Melville E. Stone 2d, Bookseller, 84." New York Times. 29 March 1989. http://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/29/obituaries/melville-e-stone-2d-bookseller-84.html (26 April 2013).
Nack, William R., et al. Thoroughbred Champions: Top 100 Racehorses of the 20th Century. Lexington, KY: Blood-Horse Publications, 1999-2003. pp. 5, 198-199. Online at Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=YWGNmICO5OAC (26 April 2013).
Rives, Barclay, et al. "Franklin B. Voss." Morven Park. 7 April 2000. http://www.morvenpark.org/voss.htm (31 October 2003).