SILVER WHISKERS

Art&Culture, Publications

Creaky knees, hard of hearing and as loyal as ever. In her latest book, Sally Muir celebrates old dogs.

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SILVER WHISKERS

WORDS BY Olivia Finlayson

When artist Sally Muir left art school in 2003, she imagined she’d be a painter of children’s portraits. But clients kept asking for their family dog to feature in the piece, too; and soon, in a way unique to the species universally, dogs gradually took over. But that’s not to say this is where it all started. Dogs have long served as a muse of sorts, since Muir was a whippersnapper: “Recently, my daughter found an old notebook from when I was a child full of drawings of my dream dogs.”

Flash forward to present day, and Muir has simply swapped dream dogs for old dogs. “When I had the idea of doing a project on old dogs, I got people to send me photos of their dogs—they were wonderful. Each came with such touching descriptions of the dog and its idiosyncrasies.” In Old Dogs, a beautiful collection of loose sketches, oil paintings, potato prints and lithographs, Muir captures our creaky-kneed, faithful hounds looking disarmingly distinguished. White eyebrows, white whiskers and old, soulful eyes hinting at years of unflinching companionship, loyalty and love.

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All artwork courtesy of Sally Muir
Old Dogs is published by Pavilion

sallymuir.co.uk
@sallymuir

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