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DEBORAH BUTTERFIELD
(American, born 1949)
EastWest, 2002
Bronze
36 x 46 x 11 ½”
Purchase: The Collectors Fund 2003.1

Montana sculptor Deborah Butterfield has concentrated on rendering the expressive gesture and presence of horses since 1970. Known for her constructivist approach, she assembles found materials, including sticks, logs, and plant forms, into evocative, moving sculptures of horses. Her earliest works were huge plaster mares, followed by a series of horses made of sticks and mud, scrap metal, and steel. She aims “to reflect how much a horse is part of his environment” by using found materials that retain their own essential history. In more recent years, she began making horses that were characterized by an open configuration and an emphasis on linear elements, as if she were making drawings in space. Her current works, such as EastWest, are unique bronze casts. Constructed from found wood and organic materials, Butterfield casts each horse in sections, welds the bronze sections together, and then individually patinas each element to resemble the weathered pieces of wood that served as her inspiration.