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You’ll never think about Tide and Oreo Cookies the same way again, creative ad agency, mono teamed up with high fashion director and photographer Matthew Donaldson to amplify universal truths about everyday items to epic proportions with a suite of national ads for Target and The Everyday Collection.

Spot: "Matador" — Tonight's menu: sirloin steak, chicken breasts and pork, with a side of fierce. Welcome to The Everyday Collection by Target.

Is Target's grocery aisle ready for its close up?

Target is pushing its food, laundry detergent and other groceries in a national ad campaign that pokes fun at high-fashion advertising by featuring models interacting with everyday products.

In one ad, a model in a white dress and high heels struts by blueberry muffin and cake mix boxes that explode in different colors. Then she crushes an egg with her hand.

"Dominate that PTA bake sale," a voiceover whispers. "The Everyday Collection. By Target."

The campaign is part of a larger move by Target, better known for its cheap-chic clothing and home goods, to focus more on its grocery-store aisle. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other Target competitors also have been expanding their selection of groceries to lure more customers into stores.

For its part, Target has been expanding its grocery selection, particularly with investments in its "P-Fresh" fresh-food section. Out of its 1,782 stores, about 1100 have an expanded fresh food layout and more than 250 have a full grocery store.

With that push complete, Target decided the time was right to put the focus on its groceries, but in a way that still plays on Target's fashion know how, said chief marketing officer Jeff Jones.

Target, with ad agency Mono in Minneapolis, created the tongue-in-cheek campaign that treats groceries and home products like fashion accessories in a photo shoot. Spending is undisclosed on the ad campaign, but it will include eight TV ads that will run throughout 2013. In addition to TV spots and newspaper inserts, it will include eight TV spots, three radio ads, and digital short films that will run as banner ads online.

One TV ad shows an $11.99 bottle of Tide laundry detergent and a model in a white dress dancing fancifully.

"We all yearn for something," says a voiceover as bubbles float by the model. "And that something is the other sock."

The campaign "creates a foil for what people are used to seeing for grocery advertising," said Jones. "It combines the design ethos and fashion creditability that Target has with the idea that it also has great grocery items at a great price." article via: The Associated Press.

Spot: "Laundry" — Lose yourself in Tide laundry detergent. Who knows what you'll find? Give in to The Everyday Collection. By Target.

Spot: "Ravenous" — Pickles, Ruffles chips and other timeless cravings. Attack! Give in to The Everyday Collection. By Target.

Spot: "Bake Sale" — Cake and muffin mix hit the catwalk in true Target fashion. Welcome to The Everyday Collection. By Target.

Credits:
Creative Ad Agency: mono, Minneapolis.
Director: Matthew Donaldson
Creative Co-Chair: Paula Biondich

An exhibit of American Indian art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art throws the connection between art and collector into unusually sharp relief.

"The exhibit honors Coe and the role he played in the acceptance and understanding of the Native American work," said Julie Jones, head of the museum's Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.

The show includes about 40 objects representing a wide range of materials, from stone to animal hide, as well as time, place and distinct peoples.

Most of the Coe collection dates from the 19th to early 20th century when Native Americans came in contact with outsiders ranging from traders to missionaries to the U.S. army.

"Coe had some particular interests, one of them being objects that have come to be called souvenir art," Jones explained.

Souvenir art melded Native American art with European art, such as mocassins embroidered with European-like floral designs. Work from the people of the Great Plains evokes the men on horseback wearing feathers and buckskin.

Masks and head dress ornaments, sometimes used in theatrical ceremonies and story-telling, are another aspect of the exhibit.

An imposing sculpture of a Noble Woman by the Northwest Coast Haida artist Robert Davidson, dated to 2001, is a contemporary expression of a long tradition of carving wood. Most of the objects were made by artists who were schooled by their predecessors.

"Traditions were handed down," Jones said.

The man behind the collection

Born in 1929 in Cleveland, Ohio, Coe grew up in a home with filled with works by Renoir, Pissarro, Monet and Manet, all collected by his father, a trustee of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

"Coe came from a solidly Eurocentric point of view. He grew up in a house full of European paintings and learned to love them," Jones said.

But a book by Miguel Covarrubias, a Mexican artist and amateur archaeologist sympathetic to tribal art, was a catalyst for Coe to turn his attention to the art of Native Americans.

Soon after reading it, Coe bought a carved model of a totem pole, his first work of American Indian art that would eventually form part of the Coe Collection, a group of more than 1,100 objects, some dating from prehistoric times.

He became a champion of American Indian art, a mutualism that continued for the next half-century.

By 1962 Coe, a curator at Kansas City's Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, organized "The Imagination of Primitive Man," an exhibit designed to illuminate the creative imagination of tribal peoples.

The most ambitious campaign Coe waged on behalf of this art resulted in "Sacred Circles: Two Thousand Years of North American Indian Art," shown in London as part of the United States Bicentennial in 1976, and in Kansas City one year later.

Its nearly 700 objects revealed the Indian approach to nature and nature's relationship to man, myth, time and space to a public that was unfamiliar with it.

"'Sacred Circles' changed the popular presentation of American Indian art and influenced a generation of collectors and museum professionals," Jones said.

For his last large exhibition — "Lost and Found Traditions: Native American Art, 1965 -1985" — Coe crisscrossed North America, seeking works of art that used traditional forms and materials, but were redefined by contemporary visions.

It marked Coe's transition from art historian to an advocate for the new, larger world of North American Indian contemporary art, and was shown in several museums in 1986.

Author: Ellen Freilich | Source: Reuters [January 17, 2012]

ØDD, founded by 21 year old model, stylist, and entrepreneur Judson Harmon, has teamed up with visual artist Jason Akira Somma (one of a select few artists within The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative) to produce ØDD's FW13 campaign film. The collaboration short film features ØDD's FW13 collection, which debuted last February at New York Fashion Week.
ØDD's founder and designer Judson Harmon commissioned artist Jason Akira Somma to produce the FW13 film featuring distorted images and ØDD's recently launched womenswear line. The video's effects reference the installation Somma created for the Lower East Side storefront that also distorts people in real time as well as the distortions found at the ØDD's FW13 Presentation during New York Fashion Week. Somma's use of this "rolling shutter" effect is showcased through the choreography emphasizing the surreal nature of the distortions. Somma choose fluorescent lighting to exploit the distortion and interference it can create while filming.

"Overall I wanted the video to have a feeling that washes over you, and at times feel voyeuristic while looking into a world that isn't ours. I wanted to respect where the collection inspiration was coming from while simultaneously not being to didactic." states Somma.
The film features haunting pop mixed with experimental ambient sounds composed by Benoit Pioulard. The track used for this video was made entirely from vocals (of both the composer and his wife) processed in real time through pedals and tape decay. "Retrofuturism" was definitely a theme I played upon in both the collection and video." states Judson Harmon. The ØDD FW13 film marks the first of a series of collaboration videos by Somma and Harmon.See the more stills from the campaign here. Press via: SYDNEY REISING CREATIVE.
Credits:
Director: Jason Akira Somma
Music: Benoit Pioulard
Executive Producers: Judson Harmon and Dylan Cornwall
Makeup: Nathan Hejl
Hair: Douglas Cornwall
Models: Emi Perry (CLICK LA)
Ryan Curry (LA Models)
The ØDD. collection is designed by Judson Harmon and Jordan Klein.
Shot on location at SNOW Studios in Downtown Los Angeles.

The British Museum will open a major exhibition presenting a history of Indigenous Australia, supported by BP. This exhibition will be the first in the UK devoted to the history and culture of Indigenous Australians: both Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders. Drawing on objects from the British Museum’s collection, accompanied by important loans from British and Australian collections, the show will present Indigenous Australia as a living culture, with a continuous history dating back over 60,000 years.

The objects displayed in this exhibition are immensely important. The British Museum’s collection contains some of the earliest objects collected from Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders through early naval voyages, colonists, and missionaries dating as far back as 1770. Many were collected at a time before museums were established in Australia and they represent tangible evidence of some of the earliest moments of contact between Aboriginal people, Torres Strait Islanders and the British. Many of these encounters occurred in or near places that are now major Australian cities such as Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth. As a result of collecting made in the early 1800s, many objects originate from coastal locations rather than the arid inland areas that are often associated with Indigenous Australia in the popular imagination.

The exhibition will not only present Indigenous ways of understanding the land and sea but also the significant challenges faced by Indigenous Australians from the colonial period until to the present day. In 1770 Captain Cook landed on the east coast of Australia, a continent larger than Europe. In this land there were hundreds of different Aboriginal groups, each inhabiting a particular area, and each having its own languages, laws and traditions. This land became a part of the British Empire and remained so until the various colonies joined together in 1901 to become the nation of Australia we know today. In this respect, the social history of 19th century Australia and the place of Indigenous people within this is very much a British story. This history continues into the twenty first century. With changing policies towards Indigenous Australians and their struggle for recognition of civil rights, this exhibition shows why issues about Indigenous Australians are still often so highly debated in Australia today.

The exhibition brings together loans of special works from institutions in the United Kingdom, including the British Library, the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. A number of works from the collection of the National Museum of Australia will be shown, including the masterpiece ‘Yumari’ by Uta Uta Tjangala. Tjangala was one of the artists who initiated the translation of traditions of sand sculptures and body painting onto canvas in 1971 at Papunya, a government settlement 240km northwest of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. Tjangala was also an inspirational leader who developed a plan for the Pintupi community to return to their homelands after decades of living at Papunya. A design from ‘Yumari’ forms a watermark on current Australian passports.

This exhibition has been developed in consultation with many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals, Indigenous art and cultural centres across Australia, and has been organised with the National Museum of Australia. The broader project is a collaboration with the National Museum of Australia. It draws on a joint research project, funded by the Australian Research Council, undertaken by the British Museum, the National Museum of Australia and the Australian National University. Titled ‘Engaging Objects: Indigenous communities, museum collections and the representation of Indigenous histories’, the research project began in 2011 and involved staff from the National Museum of Australia and the British Museum visiting communities to discuss objects from the British Museum’s collections. The research undertaken revealed information about the circumstances of collecting and significance of the objects, many of which previously lacked good documentation. The project also brought contemporary Indigenous artists to London to view and respond to the Australian collections at the British Museum.

Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum said, “The history of Australia and its people is an incredible, continuous story that spans over 60,000 years. This story is also an important part of more recent British history and so it is of great significance that audiences in London will see these unique and powerful objects exploring this narrative. Temporary exhibitions of this nature are only possible thanks to external support so I am hugely grateful to BP for their longstanding and on-going commitment to the British Museum. I would also like to express my gratitude to our logistics partner IAG Cargo and the Australian High Commission who are supporting the exhibition’s public programme.”

Source: The British Museum [April 23, 2015]

Wendell Phillips, a young paleontologist and geologist, headed one of the largest archaeological expeditions to remote South Arabia (present-day Yemen) from 1949 to 1951. Accompanied by some of the leading scholars, scientists, and technicians of the day, Phillips was on a quest to uncover two ancient cities — Timna, the capital of the once-prosperous Qataban kingdom, and Marib, the reputed home of the legendary Queen of Sheba — that had flourished along the fabled incense road some 2,500 years earlier.

Through a selection of unearthed objects as well as film and photography shot by the expedition team, the exhibition highlights Phillips’s key finds, recreates his adventures (and misadventures), and conveys the thrill of discovery on this important great archaeological frontier.

The exhibition will highlight a famed pair of striding Hellenistic bronze lions surmounted by a figure of Eros, the Greek god of love. Known as the “Lions of Timna,” the skillfully cast sculptural forms — once featured on Yemeni currency — exemplify the vibrant cultural exchange between the Qataban and Greek empires, and inscriptions on its base allow researchers to reconstruct the home it came from and explore familial relationships of its affluent owners.

Other excavated objects featured include precious incense burners, delicately carved alabaster ibexes, finely articulated funerary sculpture, and a wealth of inscriptions that offer unprecedented insight into the life and times of the ancient people of Arabia.

Where: The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

When: Oct. 11, 2014 to June 7, 2015

Source: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery [August 06, 2014]

Meet Robert Willis of The Hudson River Watch Co. and his New York City street inspired collection of wrist watches. The collection includes: Berry Street, Cranberry Street, Milligan Place, Charlton Street, Fulton Street, Sutton Place, Delancey Street, and Front Street in Silver and Black designs.

Robert explains his inspiration for starting Hudson River via KickStarter:

This project really started about a year and a half ago when my wife and I noticed it was very difficult to find great-looking, high quality men’s watches for under $500. We found ourselves talking about watches a lot, and pretty soon we started designing our own for fun. With my longtime interest in collecting watches, and my wife’s degree in studio art, we have come up with some really unique designs that we are excited to share.

We started by sketching our ideas and then applied our experience with graphic design to develop illustrations.

"Fulton Street"

"Sutton Place"
All nine of the watches from the collection below.

To date they have raised over $93K on Kickstarter, see more in the campaign video below.

Images via: Kickstarter
Hudson River Watch Co. by Robert Willis website link HERE.

Trevor Carmick a video editor from Boston creates a sweet collection of animated beer labels of some fine quality crafted ale's. The animated gif's are subtle and worthy of beeing seen and shared web wide. Below are a few of my favorite from Trevor's collection to date. Check out the rest of the Beer Labels In Motion work on Trevor's website here, or follow him on twitter @BeerLabelMotion.

Watch Candice Boucher bring the gorgeous Just Peachy Trellis collection to life in the new Figleaves Spring Collection.

Credits:
Advertised brand: figleaves
Advert title(s): figleaves Just Peachy Lingerie
Published/Released/Aired: March 2012

The Tommy Hilfiger Group, which is wholly owned by PVH Corp. (NYSE: PVH), announces its Fall 2013 global advertising campaign, cärpe-díem mañana, featuring The Hilfigers – the beloved all-American family at the heart of the brand’s marketing strategy. The new campaign finds Chloe setting off for college, and when one of the The Hilfigers’ youngest moves on campus to start her first year, the whole group of eclectic characters tags along to help her settle in. The campus is teeming with new faces as several new characters join the family shenanigans.

Now in its seventh season, The Hilfigers campaign remains the ultimate personification of the preppy heritage and irreverent spirit of the Tommy Hilfiger brand. The campaign is photographed by Craig McDean, styled by Karl Templer and creatively directed by Trey Laird of Laird + Partners.

“Collegiate traditions and the preppy, Ivy League look were some of my earliest design inspirations and the starting point for our signature style,” said Tommy Hilfiger. “It was exciting to shoot this campaign at a location that embodies our brand heritage. There’s no better setting to highlight the collegiate prep inspirations, British sartorial influences and rich Anglo fabrics of the Fall 2013 runway collections.”

For Fall 2013, a select group of bloggers were invited to the campaign shoot where they were given behind the scenes access to the collection and Fall 2013 shoot. The bloggers were styled in looks from the collection before they were photographed alongside The Hilfigers, integrating these bloggers into the campaign experience and allowing them to develop exclusive content for their websites and social media channels. The bloggers announced the campaign to their global audiences just days before the images broke in September books.

Adding a new layer to the seasonal campaign, Lisa Birnbach, author of the The Official Preppy Handbook, created spirited, individualized head-to-toe descriptions for each character’s unique style that play on brand’s preppy-with-a-twist heritage. The quintessential cast of college characters includes the “Natty Professor,” the “A-Student,” the “Bookworm,” the “Ice Queen,” the “Après Dude,” the “Professional Student,” the “Social Chair,” the “Field Tripper,” the “Alum Prez,” the “Teacher’s Pet” and the “All American.” The head-to-toe images, accompanied by Lisa’s playful depictions, will be included in multi-page inserts in select September books, outdoor advertising and on tommy.com.

“Lisa Birnbach is a true prep connoisseur and the perfect person to characterize The Hilfigers’ unique prep style,” said Tommy Hilfiger. “I’ve loved working with Lisa throughout the years and we are excited to have her prep expertise included in this campaign season.”

“The Hilfigers continue to personify the global creative vision for the brand,” said Avery Baker, Chief Marketing Officer for The Tommy Hilfiger Group. “This season we’re incorporating new content elements that celebrate the brand’s history of infusing an unexpected twist to preppy tradition. Lisa Birnbach’s playful depictions of the family’s iconic prep style add further emphasis to the youthful irreverence that has long been at the heart of the Tommy Hilfiger brand, while our global blogger partnerships celebrate the increasingly international outlook of preppy style in a way only Tommy Hilfiger has achieved. The Hilfigers campaign resonates globally with our consumers now more than ever and we are excited to continue bringing fans of the brand engaging, shoppable content each season.”

Photographed in a preppy, collegiate setting with hair by Eugene Souleiman, and makeup by Mark Carrasquillo, the campaign features a similar cast of eclectic characters from past campaigns: Jacquelyn Jablonski, Bernard Fouquet, Chloe Blackshire, Arthur Kulkov, Julia Hafstrom, Lea Sorensen, Toni Garrn, Thomas Gledhill, Kim D, Sacha M'Baye, Tidiou M'Baye, Viggo Jonasson, Jourdan Dunn, Tian Yi and two Basset Hounds named Morgan IV and V. New additions to the family this season include Sasha Luss, Cora Emmanuel, Katya Riabinkina, Benjamin Eidem, RJ King and Marlon Teixeira.

“The heart of The Hilfigers campaigns is all about storytelling, and this season we really tried to take it to the next level,” said Trey Laird, Laird + Partners Chief Executive and Creative Officer. “With Chloe headed off to college, the whole clan descended on campus en masse! The university setting provided the ideal backdrop for not only that perfect fall collegiate feeling, but also new characters to bring it all to life.”

Cärpe-díem mañana will break worldwide Fall 2013 as a multi-media program with an online, print, outdoor and social media presence. The advertising campaign will break in September 2013 issues starting July 23 with full print ads running globally in key fashion publications such as Vanity Fair, Vogue, InStyle, ELLE, Glamour, GQ, Men’s Health and Esquire; multi-page inserts will be featured in select issues. New York City; key European cities such as London, Paris and Milan; and top districts in Hong Kong will have outdoor campaigns. Tommy.com and the brand’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube channels will feature the campaign images and video. For European consumers, a new feature on tommy.com will allow fans of the brand to seamlessly shop and discover the iconic Tommy Hilfiger products, collaborations and new collections.

Penelope Cruz unveils her first collection for Agent Provocateur: "L'Agent" by directing and producing this new ad A/W 2013 Collection. Model Irina Shayk and Javier Bardem star in the film which is basically a luxurious home full of lingerie clad women and Javier, of course it's all just a dream.

Behind the scenes...

Delve behind the scenes of L'Agent's Autumn Winter 2013 Campaign — Penelope Cruz's directorial debut starring Mónica Cruz, Miguel Angel and Irina Shayk.

The Autumn Winter 2013 campaign is a highly--charged, voyeuristic experience from the viewpoint of our leading man Miguel Angel. When he dons his L'Agent sunglasses he's instantly gratified with a view of the party as everyone would wish to behold it — sans clothes. As he cruises from one room to the next, suddenly every woman at the party is seen just as God intended: wearing only L'Agent lingerie.

Suddenly the music drops and something catches our handsome protagonist's eye. Slowly, sensually descending the stairs in vertiginous heels is the hottest girl at the party — Irina Shayk.

Music is Sexy Toy,(FM) Original By Optimist.

I've been wearing the wrong foot attire! Apparently the age of box-fresh squeaky clean trainers is well and truly over. News reached the fashion world that casual-dressing favorite Converse is launching a new line of trainers that are already a bit battered and worn in, to give that pre-loved look – in the true Converse spirit of Shoes Keep It Clean, Sneakers Get Dirty as we can see from the ad they are running.

The Well Worn collection will feature their iconic Chuck Taylor in softer washed canvas with stained and distressed soles and toe caps, slightly dirtied and with thinner laces. The new season hues will be butterscotch, tango red, and of course turtledove.

To launch the collection, Converse is giving lucky Londoners a chance to attend one of three free concerts at London's 100 Club, the "Get Dirty" concerts will include The Cribs, China Rats, Ghostface Killah, Doom, Gallows, Carnival Kids, and Hoaxacts...and a lot of old dirty sneakers.

via:

The new Reebok commercial “"Girl Inspired"” is bold & beautiful, striking a chord and with a rhythmic intensity that is the fusion of music video and an all-out powerful brand spot for agency mcgarrybowen. Reebok and Alicia Keys have a new and exciting partnership and design collaboration. Alicia's first project with Reebok is the launch of her own signature collection, which includes a new take on the Freestyle Hi (also known as the 5411), Freestyle Double Bubble, Classic Nylon Slim and Princess.

To support the launch of her new Reebok Classics signature collection, Alicia Keys is featured in this TV commercial directed by Samuel Bayer. Set to an exclusive version of her upcoming new single, Girl on Fire, the story showcases how Alicia inspires and empowers women through her soul-searching journey to the top. The story takes place in the world's greatest canvas and Alicia' hometown — New York City.

Credits:
Title: “Girl Inspired”: 30
Advertising Agency: mcgarrybowen, New York, NY
Executive Creative Director: Mark Koelfgen
Associate Creative Director: Jamie Massam
Associate Creative Director: Cooper Smith
Account Director: Alison Stratten
Account Supervisor: Heather Livengood
Executive Producer: Steve Ford
Assistant Producer: Nick Bourne
Production Company: Serial Pictures NY & Serial Pictures CA
Director: Samuel Bayer
Executive Producer: Violaine Etienne
Head of Production: Peter Fitzgerald
Producer: Richard Berman
Editorial Company: Cut + Run
Editor: Gary Knight
Assistant Editor: Zach Patten
Producer: Melati Pohan
Executive Producer: Rana Martin
Telecine: Company 3, New York, NY
Colorist: Tom Poole
Visual Effects: Smoke & Mirrors, New York, NY
Artist: Sam Caine
Assistant Artist: Dan Bowhers
Audio Post: Plush, New York, NY
Mixer: Rob Fielack

The history of the horse is the history of civilisation itself. The horse has had a revolutionary impact on ancient civilisations and this major exhibition explores the influence of horses in Middle Eastern history, from their domestication around 3,500 BC to the present day. Britain’s long equestrian tradition is examined from the introduction of the Arabian breed in the 18th century to present day sporting events such as Royal Ascot and the Olympic Games.

The domestication of the horse more than 5,000 years ago dramatically changed human history. Domestication is thought to have first happened on the steppes of South Russia with horses being introduced into the Middle East around 2,300BC. Before this introduction, asses and donkeys were used for transport, predominantly as harness animals pulling cumbersome but technologically advanced vehicles — as seen on objects found at the Royal Cemetery of Ur -but gradually horses became the means of faster transportation for these early societies.

The exhibition includes one of the earliest known depictions of a horse and rider: a terracotta mould found in Mesopotamia (Iraq) dating to around 2,000 – 1,800 BC. Horses became a vital component in warfare and hunting, as reflected in the art of ancient Assyria, where elaborate and ornate horse trappings and ornaments were developed reflecting the prestige and status of horse, charioteer and rider.

Riding became an essential part of society during the Achaemenid period (5th -4th century BC), a cylinder seal of Darius, dating to 522 – 486 BC shows the king hunting lions in a chariot, and famously, the Achaemenid’s introduced ‘post horses’ which were used to deliver messages on the royal road. The horsemen of the Parthian Empire (3rd century BC – 3rd century AD) were celebrated by Roman authors for the ‘Parthian shot’, in which an apparently retreating rider would shoot arrows backwards whilst on horseback. The renown of Parthian horsemen is shown in their representation on terracotta plaques and bronze belt buckles in the British Museum collection.

Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Mughal miniature paintings, ceramics and manuscripts all attest to the growing importance of the horse in the Islamic world from the 7th century AD. Exquisite Mughal miniatures depict princes with their valued Middle Eastern steeds, horses that were famed for their speed and spirit. A magnificent Furusiyya manuscript, dating to the 14th century AD, on loan from the British Library, is a beautifully illustrated manual of horsemanship, including information on proper care for the horse, advanced riding techniques, expert weapon handling, manoeuvres and elaborate parade formations.

The horse has a long history on the Arabian Peninsula, becoming an important cultural phenomenon and a noted part of the traditional Bedouin way of life. The ‘Arabian horse’ was developed through selective breeding, and with features including a distinctive head profile and high tail carriage, the Arabian is one of the most familiar horse breeds in the world. The exhibition includes ‘Gigapan’ panorama photography of rock art which show horses in scenes of various dates from sites in Saudi Arabia, as well as loans of objects from Qaryat al-Fau which include wall paintings and figurines.

The importance of fine horses in the Middle East is explored through the fascinating Abbas Pasha manuscript (dating to the 19th century and on loan from the King Abdulaziz Public Library, Riadyh). This document is the primary source of information about the lineage of the purebred Arabian horses acquired by Abbas Pasha (the viceroy of Egypt) throughout the Middle East.

The story of the Arabian breed of horse is examined in parallel to that of Wilfrid Scawan Blunt (1840-1922), poet and agitator, and Lady Anne Blunt (1837-1917), the granddaughter of Lord Byron. The Blunts travelled widely in the Middle East and established a celebrated stud for purebred Arabians, which was crucial for the survival of the Arabian breed, at Crabbet Park in Sussex, and another outside Cairo in Egypt.

Horses, including Arabians had long been imported from the Middle East to Britain, but from the 17th century, three Arabian stallions in particular were introduced, which, bred with native mares, produced the Thoroughbred breed, now the foundation of modern racing; some 95% of all modern Thoroughbreds are descended from these three horses. Paintings and prints, trophies and memorabilia explore their remarkable success and their influence on sport and society, from early race meetings through to modern equestrian events.

Faissal Ibn Abdullah Ibn Muhammad Al-Saud, Minister of Education and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Saudi Equestrian Fund said "It is well known that the horse has played a crucial role in the development of civilization, and that a close bond exists between horses and men. I am very pleased that it has been possible to support this exhibition in London which gives us an opportunity to look at different aspects of the history of the Arabian horse and the context from which it emerged."

The exhibition runs until 30 September 2012 and is part of the celebrations for the Diamond Jubilee.

Admission is free.

Source: The British Museum [June 02, 2012]