Joe Fafard: Horses Wild and Free
Joe Fafard, Running Horses, 2017. Powder coated aluminium, 10–12 metre installation width. Purchased 2017. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. © Estate of Joe Fafard. Photo: NGC
The horse is a recurrently romanticized animal in the long history of art. This strong and elegant creature turns into a noble subject, whether shown in motion or at rest. Its beauty is captured in representations dating back to paleolithic wall paintings and Greek and Roman sculptures, depicted in scenes of landscape, battle, ceremony, sport and recreation. Often, the horse is accompanied by a mythical, religious, political or heroic figure, identified by an attribute or symbol. Sometimes the horses are winged or horned or pulling chariots. Equally fascinating is the plethora of poses, at times discreetly signaling specific meanings, at times showing an accurate breakdown of the horse’s motion, its muscles and the underlying bone structure of these complex mammals.
One such powerful representation is Joe Fafard’s sculpture Running Horses, created in 2007 and re-issued in a second version in 2017, both of which being part of the National Gallery of Canada's collection. Anything but calm, Fafard’s portrayal is exciting, fresh and streamlined, with no straps, holsters or saddles. The installation comprises eleven horses: four small colts and seven adults, including a leading mare and a stallion toeing the line. With their long manes, kicking hooves and tails flying in the wind, it is unclear whether the horses are galloping after being startled or just living free on the open plain. Fafard has left the human presence out of the picture, although in this tableau vivant, these seemingly untamed mustangs could be considered personifications.
Fafard, Running Horses (detail), 2017. © Estate Joe Fafard Photo: NGC
At the time of the work's acquisition in 2007, Heather Anderson, then Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, stated after a conversation with the artist: “The arrangement of the horses is flexible, but Mère Mare should lead and [the Stallion] Grand Cœur should be the last horse.” Anderson also noted, “The black stallion … has a shape suggestive of an anatomical heart on his chest and markings that give a sense of his muscular power and energy. In front of him is a colt named Protozoa with small organic cut-out shapes, led by a red mare named Capillary with a lace-like cut-out pattern, suggestive of the blood coursing through her veins. The lead mare is known as Mère Mare, and she is followed by a colt named Raindrops with a small droplet-like pattern. In the middle of the herd are two similar mares, each named Jument Boss.” The herd is appropriately staged among tall prairie grasses, low boulders and river-washed rock that mimic the Qu’Appelle Valley and Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan.
Joe Fafard, Running Horses (detail), 2017. © Estate of Joe Fafard. Photo: NGC
Fafard’s horse is an imaginary breed that he has creatively styled after the patchy, Pinto pattern. He has realistically captured its anatomical form, while avoiding the colouration normally associated with this breed. The natural tones of the horses’ coats are replaced by bright red, orange, yellow colours that are normally associated with flames. These vibrant colours captivate the viewer's attention and amplify the horse's energy – undomesticated, unharnessed and unbridled.
Physically, this life-sized grouping is an imposing twelve metres in length, with an extremely slim width, with each horse measuring only 1.5 cm in thickness. Nonetheless, it is a solid construction, made from powder-coated aluminum sheets fixed onto individual cast aluminum bases. With the help of a special laser-cutting tool, the artist was able to etch the lines and shapes in sharp detail, resulting in perfectly proportioned horses that reflect Fafard’s life and memories of growing up on a farm near Rocanville, Saskatchewan.
Joe Fafard, Running Horses (detail), 2017. © Estate of Joe Fafard. Photo: NGC
Joe Fafard (1942–2019) was an artist from a large family in a small Catholic hamlet in the rural francophone community of Ste-Marthe-Rocanville, Saskatchewan. Earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Manitoba School of Art in Winnipeg in 1966 and a Master’s degree from Pennsylvania State University in 1968, he briefly taught sculpture at the Regina campus of the University of Saskatchewan, before starting his professional art practice in 1974. By the following year, he had opened a studio in Pense, Saskatchewan, and in 1985 a foundry (a decade later, he moved the foundry to Lumsden, near Regina).
Over the course of his career, Fafard worked in various media – clay, plaster and metal – producing a considerable body of work. He often made portraits of friends, family and farm animals (mainly cows and horses), earning an informal reputation among his contemporaries as a folk artist. In his book Joe Fafard, art writer and curator Terrence Heath asked Fafard about the most important characteristic of his art: “Accessibility,” he replied – a quality that allows people from all walks of life, whether connoisseur or passerby, “capable of experiencing” his work.
Joe Fafard, Running Horses (detail), 2017. © Estate Joe Fafard Photo: NGC
In 2017, Fafard was able to replicate Running Horses, making a second version for the Gallery's collection. This version was created in powder-coated aluminium rather than powder-coated steel and bronze, and was specifically designed to withstand inclement weather, enabling the sculpture to remain in its outdoor setting alongside Sussex Drive all year long. This placement honours Fafard’s wish to make the work accessible as public art, the sculpture being visible to all, at all times.
Joe Fafard's Running Horses are on view alongside Sussex Drive façade of the National Gallery of Canada. Share this article and subscribe to our newsletters to stay up-to-date on the latest articles, Gallery exhibitions, news and events, and to learn more about art in Canada.
