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Alastair has written a sequel to his trilogy by working with Anthony Oakshett, the leading English portrait artist (https://www.anthonyoakshettpaintings.uk/).  In 1994, Anthony created the large-scale painting titled The Origins of the Ryder Cup.​​

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The trilogy and its sequel, based on researching famous golf art, take the evolution of the modern game of golf from its ‘coming of age’ in the 1890s with the professional and amateur games both reaching their ‘maturity’ by 1930. In The Origins of the Ryder Cup, the artist adopts the same approach as the famous artists of the nineteenth century, Sir Francis Grant, PRA, Charles Lees and Alexander Wardlow, using multiple miniature portraits in an extensive landscape of a celebrated sporting scene. The biographies of the characters in these paintings reflect a joined-up history of the evolution of golf.

 

The scene at the Wentworth Club in 1926 depicts the second informal match between golfers from Great Britain and competitors in The Open Championship from overseas. It also includes the leading golfers of the era, and from the 1890s forward (including, J.H. Taylor, Harry Vardon and James Braid).

 

The foreword to the sequel is by the acclaimed American golf historian, Rand Jerris, Ph.D. who wrote:

 

‘In this fine publication, Alastair Loudon once again encourages us to turn to a work of art—Anthony Oakshett’s The Origins of the Ryder Cup 1926 (completed in 1994)—to enrich our understanding of golf history. In this instance, visual imagery serves as critical evidence for the evolving status of professional golf, both in Britain and America, in the early decades of the twentieth century. This monumental painting, which graces the clubhouse at Wentworth Golf Club, documents both a moment in time, when a team of American professionals journeyed to England in June 1926 to compete against a team of British professionals in an informal competition, and an era in golf history, when professional golf had reached maturity and its stature was surpassing that of the amateur game. Continuing his earlier methodology, Alastair leverages the foundational concept of artistic choice, this time enhanced by first-person description from the artist, to illuminate deeper meanings in the richly detailed historical composition.’

 

The Gentry Links Sequel is a 44-page booklet produced to a high standard. Remarkably, evidencing the axiom that a picture is worth 1,000 words, key stories reflected in The Origins of the Ryder Cup have been uniquely brought to life in the sequel by Anthony Oakshett’s own illustrations,

 

The Gentry Links Sequel will accompany Anthony Oakshett’s forthcoming release of large-scale Limited Edition prints of his majestic painting to celebrate significant centenaries of golf.

 

Individual copies of The Gentry Links Sequel will generally not be available for purchase, but the Sequel will be released without charge with any purchase of The Gentry Links Trilogy.