BLUEGRASS MUSE

THERE ARE A NUMBER OF WAYS TO SIZE UP THE IMPACT OF A PAINTING: by the number of tourists willing to squeeze into a museum gallery to catch a fleeting glimpse of it, for example, or by the small fortunes (or large ones) auction participants will bid to obtain it. On rare occasions, someone reacts to a painting in the pure and unfiltered way a woman named Lilla Mason did, when she first laid eyes on a certain work by Andre Pater.

Pater is a Polish American painter who, experts and collectors agree, ranks among the greatest sporting artists alive, an heir to the mantles of such legends of the field as George Stubbs and Sir Alfred Munnings, British painters of centuries past who are lauded, in particular, for their masterful depictions of horses. Several years ago, Pater (the name’s pronounced “potter”) began donating works he had painted, typically one a year, to the Iroquois Hunt Club, a prestigious foxhunting society founded in 1880 in his adopted hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, of which he is a member. The club auctions the paintings to raise money for the Hound Welfare Fund, a nonprofit club members started to provide a carefree retirement for hounds that, because of age or injury, no longer take part in the chase. For one of the first fundraisers, Pater created a pastel portrait of a beloved old English foxhound named Captain—gazing from the canvas, resolute and