Reuben Ward Binks was recognized as the leading artist of his day in canine portraiture, primarily painting purebred dogs for some the most prominent dog fanciers in England, the United States and India. While he worked in drypoint etching, aquatint, pastel and both opaque and transparent watercolor, he is best known for his work and most of his dog portraits were executed in gouache.
The great majority of Binks’ dog paintings are of the pure-bred dog, with the dog posing, facing left, to show off the prominent features of the breed. Binks’ love of dogs and his great artistic abilities brought him in contact with many socially prominent dog fanciers, and Lorna, Countess of Howe had actively encouraged him in his chosen career specializing in sporting dogs. The Countess of Howe commissioned Binks to paint an entire series of her sporting dogs, including Labrador Retrievers and Springer Spaniels. Her associations with the Royal Family brought Binks into contact with the highest echelons of British society and was accepting royal commissions on a regular basis.
Binks completed portraits of the Prince of Wales’ Cairn Terriers; the Duke of York’s Labrador Retriever; the Duke of Gloucester’s rough-haired Fox Terrier, King George V Clumber Spaniels. Indeed, portraits of royal dogs which the artist completed during the reign of Queen Victoria, King Edward VII and King George V are hung throughout the royal country residence at Sandringham, located near King’s Lynn in the county of Norfolk. Binks portraited not only King George V’s sporting dogs but his household pets as well, including the well-known Fox Terrier, Jack, Pomeranians, Pekingese and Basset Hounds owned by Queen Alexandra and the young Princess Victoria.
Binks’ skill as a dog and animal artist was to earn him international renown among animal lovers, and he traveled to North America and India to complete these commissions. In one of several visits to India, he spent more than eight months in residence painting the gun dogs of the Maharajah Dhiraj of Patiala. The Palace of Patiala was home to over 150 dogs, including Labrador Retrievers, Springer Spaniels, Cocker Spaniels and West Highland White Terriers.
Binks also traveled twice to America, and while there completed commissions for several prominent dog fanciers, among them, Mrs. Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge. Mrs. Dodge was best known for her great interest in German Shepherds and English Cocker Spaniels, but she had many different breeds in her kennels in Madison, New Jersey. The favorite niece of the great American oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, Mrs. Dodge had married the Remington arms heir Marcellus Hartley Dodge, and settled in Madison, NJ to establish Hartley Farms, a vast complex of hundreds of acres as she owned more than 85 different breeds of dogs. The artist at Giralda Farm for almost two years and painted over 200 portraits of her many champion dogs.
Binks’ only exhibition in America during his lifetime was held at the Harlow and Macdonald Galleries in December of 1931, where he exhibited over eighty originals, and some prints which he had begun publishing through Arthur A. Greatorex of London.