Margaret Bennett Cottman O’Callaghan On Tom Fool by Franklin B. Voss

Franklin B. Voss was the leading American equestrian artist of his day. He painted more than 600 commissions from premier horse racing and breeding families. His commissions included Man o’ War, Sir Barton, Equipoise, Seabiscuit, War Admiral, Citation and Whirlaway, to name just a few.

This week’s cover, Margaret Bennett Cottman O’Callaghan On Tom Fool, is an oil on canvas dated 1929. Margaret Bennett Cottman (later Mrs. Cyril O’Callaghan) married Thomas Edmund Cottman, a Baltimore business and society leader, whose family estate was Westburn in the Eccleston area of the Green Spring Valley. Mrs. Cottman is portrayed in front of the beautiful rolling countryside of that famed foxhunting region. The painting was a gift of Mrs. Clarence Miles to the Maryland Historical Society.

This painting is part of a traveling exhibition presented by the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame, Saratoga Springs, N.Y. “The Voss Family, Artists of American Sporting Life” will be shown at the Maryland Historical Society through July 27 and later in the year at the National Sporting Library, Middleburg, Va.
Also featured are works by Jessie Voss Lewis (1876-1962), Edward Somerville Voss (1883-1969), and Edward’s wife, Elsa Horne Voss (1895-1982). For more information visit www.mdhs.org.