Quietly, without fanfare, under the radar of all but a handful of insiders in the intermingled worlds of wildlife, Western, and contemporaray representational art, Bob and Curtice McCloy have assembled a collection unlike no other. For some thirty years, driven by a boundless passion for the art they enjoy and guided by an unerring eye for the qualities that make this art matter and endure, the McCloys have sought out the very best--and surrounded themselves with it. In the words of the eminent wildlife painter Ken Carlson, "The McCloys have never taken a single false step."

The names of the artists in the McCloy's collection confirm the shrewdness of their judgment. The list is headed by the incomparable Bob Kuhn, a man whose work the McCloys singled out long before other collectors got up to speed (and drove the prices for Kuhn's paintings into the stratosphere). But literally every artist the McCloys collect is a figure of note, from acclaimed wildlife artists like Carlson, Tucker Smith, and Tim Shinabarger to the masterful landscape artist Clyde Aspevig, the wizardly trompe l'oeil painter William Acheff, and the lyrical, singularly talented realist Richard Schmid.

If the McCloys owned a "representative" selction by these artists, theirs would qualify as an important collection. But what makes people in the know shake their heads in awe is that the McCloys don't own just a few works by these artists: they own a houseful. In terms of quality, their collection has few rivals--but when you alloy that with numbers, it becomes vividly clear that this is a collection in a class by itself. Little wonder that Kuhn called Bob and Curtice McCloy "patrons without peer."

Many if not most of these paintings have never been seen by the public. Now, at long last, the McCloys have been persuaded to share the fruits of a passion they've cultivated with unparalleled energy and enthusiasm since the early 1980s. The advice given by friends of the McCloys to those who have been invited to see their collection is equally appropriate here: Prepare to be amazed. --from jacket cover