Solon H. Borglum, born Ogden, UT - Animal Studies - n.d. - T-Shirt

This is a loose pencil study sheet of animals, with fowl, a stag and a dog at a bowl scattered across a pale cream ground.

Visual Elements & Composition

Cream paper dominates the design, with pencil grey and light graphite lines doing all the work. Fowl appear most often: a standing bird sits at upper centre, its feathers drawn in loose, overlapping strokes, and several birds lower their heads or feed across the upper and middle sections. A dog bends toward a shallow bowl at centre, and a stag stands in profile at lower left, its branching antlers traced in quick, varied lines. Ochre staining warms the paper in places. Each figure floats alone with no shared setting, so the eye moves from one quick vignette to the next. There is no text or numerals.

Meaning & Symbolism

The sheet records movement rather than finished form. Each animal is caught in a single moment, standing, lowering its head or turning, and the repeated poses show an artist watching living animals and noting how the body shifts from one attitude to the next. Studies like these were a standard part of a sculptor's preparation, since a figure modelled in clay or bronze depends on an accurate sense of weight and limbs. Solon Borglum, born in 1868 in Ogden, Utah, was an American sculptor who studied in Paris and worked in New York, known for animal sculpture and Western subjects. He was the brother of the sculptor Gutzon Borglum. This undated sheet reflects the core of his practice: the observational work behind the animal sculpture for which he was best known.

On the T-Shirt

A sheet of small, quick sketches suits a shirt because the drawing is meant to be looked at up close, the way a viewer leans in to follow one bird's posture and then the next. Across the chest, the scattered vignettes read as a single page of observation, and the wearer becomes the one carrying the sketchbook.