Solon H. Borglum, born Ogden, UT - Horses - 1897 - T-Shirt

A loose pencil sheet of several horses, each drawn in a different attitude, laid over one another across a page of aged parchment.

Visual Elements & Composition

Pale cream paper dominates the design, with graphite-grey contour lines doing all the work. At upper left, the hindquarters and hind legs of one horse are set down in a few quick strokes. At upper right, another horse is seen from behind, its tail and legs built from short, broken marks. The central figure lowers its head and neck, its forelegs shaded with hatching, while a fourth horse is cut off by the lower edge at left. Handwritten notes run along the bottom beneath the animals, and a small page number sits in the upper right corner.

Meaning & Symbolism

The sheet works as a sequence of observations rather than a finished picture. Each horse stands, turns or drops its head, so the page records how weight shifts through the body and how the legs take up that movement. Studies like this were kept as a visual notebook, a store of forms to draw on for larger works. Solon Hannibal Borglum (1868 to 1922) was an American sculptor born in Ogden, Utah, known for his animal subjects, particularly horses. He trained in Paris under the animalier Emmanuel Frémiet, and drawing horses from life sat at the centre of his practice.

On the Unisex Heavy Cotton Tee

Pencil studies read best up close, and a tee carries this sheet across the chest where the eye naturally settles. The overlapping figures and marginal notes stay legible at that scale, so the wearer can follow the same shifting lines Borglum set down in 1897.