Solon H. Borglum, born Ogden, UT - Horse Study - n.d. - T-Shirt

This sheet by American sculptor Solon Borglum fills its pale cream paper with quick ink studies of horses, repeated in shifting poses until the animal becomes the true subject.

Visual Elements & Composition

Fine, broken pen lines do most of the work here. Heads, legs, backs and haunches recur across the surface, some fully drawn and others reduced to a few strokes. Toward the lower centre, a small standing figure in a wide-brimmed hat and loose clothing faces the viewer, one arm bent at the waist. The marks stay light and rapid, and much of the sheet is left open between the groups, so the eye moves from study to study rather than settling on one fixed image. The palette is restrained: warm cream paper and dark brown-black ink.

Meaning & Symbolism

Repeating one animal in many attitudes is a way of working out how a horse's body changes as it stands, turns or lowers its head. The small hatted figure gives scale and points to the working world that surrounded the animals. Solon Borglum (1868–1922) was born in Ogden, Utah, spent many years in Paris, and was the younger brother of Gutzon Borglum. He became known for bronze animal and Western subjects, and sheets like this one record the observational habit behind that sculpture, in which the horse, drawn again and again from life, stood at the centre of his practice.

Built From Repeated Looking

Printed across a Gildan 5000 tee, the sheet reads as a field of observations, with each horse another attempt to get a gesture right. The open spaces between the drawings carry over to the chest of the shirt, where the figure in the hat sits low and the studies gather around it. Each drawing keeps the quick, unfinished character of the original page.