Jean Louis GRÜNHEID

Jean louis Grünheid is an accomplished judge of sighthounds and various other breeds.
He has officiated on championship level on the European and African continents, as well as in the United States. He has gained much acclaim in Salukis under the prefix “Arab Bahari”, as well as in Basenjis and in Italian Greyhounds under “ du Manoir des Ombreuses” and in Greyhounds under “du Caïlar” with his partner Alain Caïla.

Jean Louis Grünheid has studied sighthounds, mainly Salukis, Azawakhs and Sloughis, in their native environment in North and Central Africa, and the Middle East. He judges also Arab horses. In addition, he is the only European judge to have the honour bestowed upon him by the Arabs to judge camels! For the past seven years he has travelled to the Sahara on archeological expeditions in collaboration with the National Museums of Art and Archeology of Algiers exploring the discovery of new frescos and rock-dwelling pictures dating 4000 to 7000 years ago. In addition he is a member of an international team reintroducing the Azawakh in its native Touareg of Tassili and Hoggar habitats.

Jean Louis Grünheid has studied copper acid engraving under the master Maurice Felt, who began at the age of fourteen in the studio of Braque, Miro and Picasso.

He is a graphic artist and illustrator, as well as a writer and an orientalist painter.

His drawings are taken from his travel sketch books of the Arab and African countries he frequents. Judge of hounds and terriers in France, his pictures are sought after by Arab, American and European collectors. He is just finishing an art book about “Gazehounds in History, Art and Litterature” and has published a book of old photos of the desert and Touareg tribes: “Le Sahara d’Henri Lhote”.

Marylin Labrache-Brown, Morgan-Labrache Gallery, editor of “Classic Saluki”

In his lecture, Jean Louis GRÜNHEID will be dealing with the Celtic hounds in art and history; with origins, crossings, exchanges and interferences, the notion of beauty, of purity and of the utilisation in the eye of the technician and in the eye of the artist: ideal and aesthetization of the breed.