The Art of Sliding The World’s largest collection of ski graphics and books is the result of one man’s passion
	by John Fry
	From the September 1996 issue of Snow Country
	When Mason Beekley was a freshman at Princeton in 1945, he bought a book called Skiing for 25 cents. "I wasn’t a collector then, but I knew the legendary Otto Schneibs, who influenced me to read everything about the sport," recalls Beekley, sitting in the ski Aerie gallery at his home in northwestern Connecticut. "Schneibs said, ‘Skiing is not a sport, it’s a way of life.’ I believed him." Cobbling Schneibs’ metaphysics to his life, Beekley has spent the last 50 years collecting 2,500 ski books and hundreds of pieces of art…and more keeps coming in. He now owns both the world’s largest private ski library and collection of ski art. As a by-product, he has also founded the International Skiing History Association (ISHA). He funds his activities with the income he garners as chairman of the Connecticut-based Beekley Corporation, which develops, manufactures and sells health-care products to hospitals and other niche markets. "In buying art, my two criteria are: There must be a skier in the illustration, and I must like it," says Beekley, 69. He owns one of only two ski paintings by Andrew Wyeth, as well as eight oils by Eric Sloane, America’s most famous painter of clouds. A Leroy Neiman painting of Vail, several Churchill Ettingers, and dozens of framed originals of famous magazine and advertising art also hang in the 2,500-square-foot gallery he built to house his collection. Admission to the gallery is by invitation only. Beekley is silent on how much he has spent on his avocation, but insists a lot of money isn’t needed to become a collector. "I probably spent an average of less than $5 per book on the first thousand books I collected," he says. "a museum once rejected by $3,000 bid for a copy of the first ski instruction book by Mathias Zdarsky. I later found it for $200." Among his most valuable books are the three additions of The History of the Northern Peoples by Olaus Magus. They date from 1555 and contain the first woodcut illustrations of skiing that were ever published. "The first written descriptions of skiing are in an 1199 Danish manuscript that I would love to own if it could be found," says Beekley. He’d also like to have a Norman Rockwell painting that appeared on the January 1948 cover of the Saturday Evening Post. "When it was up for auction a couple of years ago, I couldn’t afford it," he says. "Since then, it has doubled in value." There isn’t a ski museum in the world that wouldn’t be thrilled to inherit Beekley’s collection. But it’s more likely that the Connecticut collector will build a museum in his hometown of New Hartford. "I hope to create a sufficient endowment to pay for it, including the services of a curator. Then the museum would be at the disposal of ski researchers throughout the world."
			Ski art and posters from the first half of this century have rarely been equaled in quality. This commercial silk-screen print was created to sell sports clothing in the Paris branch store of Barclay”s of London in the earky 1900s.
			“Delicacy on Skis” is the title Beekley gave to this white marble figure resting against an alabaster snowpile, illuminated from inside. It is the 1920 work of an Italian sculptor
			“Ski Joring.” Showing a horse pulling a skier in Yosemite Park, is the work of America’s most renowned photographer, Ansel Adams. Adams was hired to promote Yosemite’s 1932 Winter Olympic bid. Beekley’s signature print is from the original negative, now lost