We at Wildlife Art Journal magazine don't believe that "wildlife art"—the good stuff, anyway— needs a defense, but you be the judge.  Recently, an unnamed blogger (or bloggers) writing the self-proclaimed  "gossip column" for Art & Auction magazine took a snarky swipe at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  By extension, it could be perceived as a broad side attack  on all wildlife artists.

The blog begins:  "We have a lot of strange museums here in the United States, including (but not limited to) the City Reliquary of New York, California’s Museum of Pez Memoribilia (sic), and Boston’s Museum of Bad Art. But did you know we also have a National Museum of Wildlife Art?"

We won't hold it against the blogger for being unable to correctly spell the word "memorabilia."  The writer categorized the  National Museum of Wildlife Art  under the taglines "kitsch" and "LOL" and then described the actual edifice (erroneously) and apparently sight unseen this way:  "The collection is housed inside a 51,000-square-foot sandstone building that looks like a fort out of an old western movie." The blogger adds: "Anyway, the big news for us is that the Wildlife Museum actually exists. 'Wildlife' art is another beast entirely."

Read the entire bit and post your own response if you feel inclined.  Here's mine for those interested:  "What’s laughable about this blog is not that it uses the taglines “kitsch” and “LOL” in reference to the National Museum of Wildlife Art, but the ignorance of the writer who obviously has never stepped foot in the museum. Would the author classify as “kitsch” works by N.C. Wyeth, Bruno Liljefors, Edward Kemeys (whose lions adorn the front steps of the Art Institute of Chicago, for example), Alfred Jacob Miller and George Catlin (works in National Gallery), Antoine-Louis Barye (Louvre), Albert Bierstadt (Metropolitan)  Rosa Bonheur, Rembrandt Bugatti, William Merritt Chase, J.J. Audubon,and contemporary artists such as Walton Ford and George Carlson, to name a few? For the record, [Carl] Rungius [the mere "big-game painter"] was an academician in the National Academy Of Design. All of these artists, deservedly, have works in the world’s major art museums and they are in the permanent collection at the National Museum of Wildlife Art . What’s laughable: Jeff Koons' porcelain piece, "Pink Panther" in the Museum of Modern Art."