Prints of the animal world

Fifty years ago the American psychiatrist and collector Dallas Pratt (1914- 1994) founded the American Museum in Britain with English-born antiques dealer John Judkyn (1913-1963). Their intention was to showcase the American decorative arts in Britain, and thereby enable visitors to have a better understanding of the history of the United States and its people.

Judkyn was killed in a motor accident soon after the Museum opened but Pratt, outliving his companion by over thirty years, continued to shape the Museum. As well as presenting it with his renowned collection of medieval and Renaissance world maps in his later years, Dr Pratt also donated 180 prints by American artists depicting the sympathetic relationship between man and animals.

The American artists represented in a new comprehensive print menagerie include James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Frederick Stuart Church (1842-1924), Rockwell Kent (1882-1971), Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975), Grant Wood (1892-1942), Diana Thorne (b. 1895), Lynd Kendall Ward (1905-1985), Jackson Lee Nesbitt (1913-2008), William Wind McKim (1916-1995), and Leonard Baskin (1922-2000).

Date: until July 1
Location: The American Museum in Britain. Claverton Manor. Bath BA2 7BD. United Kingdom
Opening hours: from Tuesday to Sunday from 12pm to 5pm.