20th-21st Century Equine and Equestrian Art

20th-21st Century Equine and Equestrian Art

Introduction

This section of the Traditional Fine Arts Organization (TFAO) catalogue Topics in American Art is devoted to the topic "American 20th-21st Century Equine and Equestrian Art" Articles and essays specific to this topic published in TFAO's Resource Library are listed at the beginning of the section. Clicking on titles takes readers directly to these articles and essays. The date at the end of each title is the Resource Library publication date.

After articles and essays from Resource Library are links to valuable online resources found outside our website. Links may be to museums' articles about exhibits, plus much more topical information based on our online searches. Following online resources may be information about offline resources including museums, DVDs, and paper-printed books, journals and articles.

We recommend that readers search within the TFAO website to find detailed information for any topic. Please see our page How to research topics not listed for more information.

(above: Frederic Remington, On the Southern Plains, 1907, Oil on canvas, 30 1/8 x 51 1/8in. (76.5 x 129.9cm), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Several Gentlemen, 1911)

Articles and essays from Resource Library in chronological order:

Horses of the West: Power, Freedom, and Friendship (3/2/15)

Hoofbeats and Heartbeats: the Horse in American Art (9/14/10)

Deborah Butterfield: Horses (6/23/05) The Norton Museum of Art exhibit features twelve evocative sculptures of horses in bronze, steel, and mixed media by the internationally acclaimed Montana sculptor.

Unbridled Beauty: Images of the Horse in American Art (6/4/03)

Unbroken Spirit: The Wild Horse in the American Landscape (2/11/02)

Horse Tales: American Images and Icons 1800--2000 (11/15/01)

Horse & Rider in the Harmsen Collection of Western Art (1/8/01)

Click here for more articles and essays on this subject published in 1998-2000.

(above: N. C. Wyeth, Smokey Face, 1917, oil on canvas, 32 1/4 ? 40 inches, Brigham Young University Museum of Art. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)

From other websites:

The American Academy of Equine Art website including history. Accessed 5/21

Horse Power: American Weathervanes From a Distinguished New England Collection is a 2019 exhibit at the Colby College Museum of Art which says: "A popular subject in art and the wider visual culture, horses were commonly depicted in weathervane form. This installation explores some of the different varieties of nineteenth-century American horse weathervanes and their historical significances." Accessed 4/20

"Horse Power," works by Cedric Smith is a 2021 exhibit at the Albany (GA) Museum of Art which says: "Where are African-American men depicted on horseback and in what context? The romantic western cowboy, the onward soldier, the jockey, or the gentleman hunter? This exhibition, titled Horse Power, is Smith's ongoing inquiry of these missing symbols as he asks, 'What if these depictions in mass visual culture had been available for role models?'" Accessed 9/21

Kehinde Wiley: Equestrian Portrait of Prince Tommaso of Savoy-Carignan is a 2019 exhibit at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art which says: "This major painting is an extension of the artist's Rumors of War series, which takes the form of historic equestrian portraiture. In Wiley's hands, this established genre expands in scale to over nine feet in each dimension, and explodes in color with a revelry of bold and bright hues." Also see artist's website. Accessed 2/20

Millard Sheets: Hills and Horses was a 2015-15 exhibit at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden. Claremont Museum of Art says:"Inspired by a lifelong love of horses and the landscape surrounding his Padua Hills home, artist Millard Sheets depicted a familiar way of life. The exhibition Millard Sheets: Hills and Horses, curated by his son Tony Sheets, will include paintings, drawings and lithographs from the years that he lived in Padua Hills in the 1940s-60s and beyond." Accessed 10/16.

William Schaaf: The Way of the Equine is a 2019 exhibit at the Polk Museum of Art which says: "For many years, Bill Schaaf has explored equine imagery in his paintings and sculpture. The horse figure as an iconic metaphor for power, sensuality, transition and beauty has occupied a dominant place in his visual vocabulary." Also see artist's website. Accessed 3/19

Online video

May, 2023 screenshot via Google video search:

Go to Equine Art: 18-19th Century, 1 9-20th Century, 20-21st Century

Return to Topics in American Representational Art

See our Museums Explained to learn about the "inner workings" of art museums and the functions of staff members. In the exhibitions section find out how to get the most out of a museum visit. See definitions for a glossary of museum-related words used in articles.

To help you plan visits to institutions exhibiting American art when traveling see Sources of Articles Indexed by State within the United States.

Unless otherwise noted, all text and image materials relating to the above institutional source were provided by that source. Before reproducing or transmitting text or images please read Resource Library's user agreement.

Our catalogues provide many more useful resources.

American Representational Art has links to dozens of topics.

Distinguished Artists is a national registry of historic artists.

About Resource Library

Resource Library is a free online publication of nonprofit Traditional Fine Arts Organization (TFAO). Since 1997, Resource Library and its predecessor Resource Library Magazine have cumulatively published online 1,300+ articles and essays written by hundreds of identified authors, thousands of other texts not attributable to named authors, plus 24,000+ images, all providing educational and informational content related to American representational art. Texts and related images are provided almost exclusively by nonprofit art museum, gallery and art center sources.

All published materials provide educational and informational content to students, scholars, teachers and others. Most published materials relate to exhibitions. Materials may include whole exhibition gallery guides, brochures or catalogues or texts from them, perviously published magazine or journal articles, wall panels and object labels, audio tour scripts, play scripts, interviews, blogs, checklists and news releases, plus related images.

What you won't find:

User-tracking cookies are not installed on our website. Privacy of users is very important to us. You won't find annoying banners and pop-ups either. Our pages are loaded blazingly fast. Resource Library contains no advertising and is 100% non-commercial. .

Links to sources of information outside our website are provided only as referrals for your further consideration. Please use due diligence in judging the quality of information contained in these and all other websites. Information from linked sources may be inaccurate or out of date. We neither recommend or endorses these referenced organizations. Although we include links to other websites, we take no responsibility for the content or information contained on other sites, nor exert any editorial or other control over them. For more information on evaluating web pages see our General Resources section in Online Resources for Collectors and Students of Art History.

*Tag for expired US copyright of object image:

Search Resource Library