Profiles

The signature artwork for this year’s Palamountain Scholarship Benefit is the handiwork of equine artist Sharon Crute, whose extensive experience as an insider in the horse-racing industry informs and inspires her work as a painter.

“There are many equine artists. But how many have worked at a racetrack as a hot walker and assistant trainer?” wrote Karen Bjornland of the Daily Gazette. “When Sharon Crute paints a thoroughbred thundering down the track, she taps into the excitement and emotions of her 30 years in horse racing.”

Crute is married to Michael Bray, a retired thoroughbred trainer who raced horses at Saratoga and across the country. As they worked together, traveling the horse-racing circuit from New Hampshire to Florida to California, Crute gained experience as a horse owner, trainer and racing official. It’s no wonder that she views her art as coming straight “from the trenches.” She strives to express the subtle with an undercurrent of volatility, resulting from intimate knowledge of the anguish and exhilaration shared by all those who love horse racing.

Crute and her husband currently live in Saratoga Springs, where she is a participating member of the Artist’s Village at the Saratoga Race Course during the summer race meet. In recent years, Crute has expanded her subject matter to include various team sports and sporting events. She also has an impressive body of land and seascape paintings.

Crute’s paintings are collected extensively across the U.S. and in England, Ireland and Italy. Commissions keep her busy, with her work being featured on posters, book covers and program covers. She has produced large-scale murals for Sea World and the super-yacht Unbridled. Her logo design and illustrations are included in two children’s books.

Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Crute received a B.F.A. in painting from the Swain School of Design.