After finishing “Horse” written by Geraldine Brooks I was inspired try my hand at a portrait of a horse.
“Horse” begins with a young black art historian from Legos helping an older neighbor move a recliner from her apartment to a pile of “free stuff” on the street. As a thank you, she tells him to take anything he wants from the pile. He goes through the motions of finding something to be polite when he spots an oil painting of a racehorse. Over the next 400 pages the story untangles the mystery of this painting made during the civil war of a black jockey and the horse Lexington.
When I began looking for images in the Library of Congress Archives. I started with random searches by topic. Dogs. Skyscrapers. Farms. This helped me understand the search engine. I learned how to narrow down my subject beyond category and to take deeper dives into the imagery including research on horses from different periods of time and in different environments.
Garfield County, Montana. Sheepherder and his horse, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs, No known restrictions.
In the past my work has been dominated by photographs that I have taken or vintage photographs from family albums. The issue for me as a professional, is that these are not something that in general people would want to purchase and many times they are not portraits I want to part with. (After all, who would want a portrait of someone else's Aunt on their wall?)
I had made a piece called “Cowgirls” that was as close as I had ever gotten to painting horses. It was photograph I had taken of my daughter when she was on a mounted drill team. The feedback was very positive. People love horse pictures for their walls here in the West. I thought I would get a photo I could use as a reference, possibly find an interesting backstory, and make something outside of my typical subject matter.
I have been influenced by artists like Bisa Butler who use historic photographs and transform them into bold contemporary portraits. These are not photographs she has taken or images she collects from family. She uses archival photographs with permission from the owner or institution. I began my search for archival images in the online collection of the Library of Congress. (If you have been reading my previous posts you know that I have been working on a series of women at the beginning of the feminist revolution.)
The first image selection I made was a color photograph taken on a horse ranch near the town of Venus in north-central Texas. The file was listed as having “ No known restrictions on publication.” This means the institution gives me permission to download and use this image. It was not particularly interesting with the exception of the named community of “Venus” Texas and the look in the eye of the young colt. It was not a photo that was well known. In other words; low risk. I went to work playing with the composition.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
My version of this mother and child changed the orientation from horizontal to vertical. Digitally I removed the color and replaced it with something leaning towards pastel shades. After it was printed on linen cotton canvas, I painted the background to create a lush playful landscape with the sun going down in the Western Sky. The stitching followed the colors and helped to create vegetation where there was none. In the end, “Venus Texas” was more pretty painting of horses than a copy of the photograph . It went to a local gallery and has never sold.
Horses imagery has a long history. The earliest horse painting was on the walls of the Lascaux caves in France. The paintings are estimated to be 17000 years old. Horses were subjects in Egyptian, Grecian and Roman art, where their anatomy was carefully studied. Horse-drawn chariots were depicted on pottery and leaders like Marcus Aerlius riding into war were immortalized in sculpture. Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Titian painted horses.
George Stubbs - Whistlejacket, c. 1762
In the 18th century animal and sporting art gained massive popularity. This was also the century in which the thoroughbred was perfected as a breed. The sports of horse racing and fox hunting created a demand that artists scrambled to fill. Patrons were looking for accurate portraits of their investment. Hanging an equestrian portrait on the wall was a sign of wealth. For people who wish to emulate the upper class, a portrait of a horse in a gilded frame it is just the thing.
Deborah Butterfield, Cascade (2013)
Deborah Butterfield is a wildly successful sculpture of horses in the contemporary art scene. She was born in 1949 on the 75h running of the Kentucky Derby. As a young artist she wanted to work with the female form but ended up creating horses as metaphorical self portraits. She lives in Bozeman Montana. Her exaggerated equine figures are created using discarded pieces of wood or other found objects and then assembled into form. The final product may be cast bronze to ensure its logevity, but the finish duplicates the origonal material .
Her work is collected and housed in major museums. These horses are not depicted in the classical form or created to honor the owner’s pride of possession. They are something entirely different. In a review of her work Nancy Princenthal writes:
It seems essential to the character of the horses she depicts that they are not in service to people. Unlike the vast majority of equine subjects in art (and literature), Butterfield’s are not instruments of warfare, or agriculture, or pre-automotive transportation, or of the status that accrues to owners of costly property. Rather than inclining to human use, Buttefield’s horses tip toward the natural environment.
Taking a new look at a subject as old as the horse is intriguing to me. How to turn the ideas and values of the genre on its head? Create something that looks like “horse” but represents something entirely different.
Susan Rothenberg Untitled Drawing, No. 41 1977 MOMA
Susan Rothenberg, who died in 2020; was another artist who used the horse as a symbol. Rothenberg set herself apart from the art scene of the 1970’s and 80’s in New York that was in love with minimalism. She got her BFA in 1967 from Cornell, studied at the Corcoran Museum School and had her first solo exhibition in New York in 1975. A critic’s comment “"the mere reference to something really existing was astonishing." In other words she was brave enough to reject the status quo. This bold attitude shaped her successful career.
Both of these artists hold my attention. Their voices goes beyond the shared subject matter. I entered art school in 1977 and know well how powerful the pressure is to embrace the trends that emerge. That said, when the artist walks out into their own studio the work magically transforms, if not for the viewer, at least for the creator.
Until next time…