FAIRWEATHER 2011.085

Horses were one of the artist's favourite subjects. In this work, horses, in full flight around the race track, are captured in a fluid, free-flowing line, the drivers visibly straining to hold their charges. The splashes of colour add a powerful vibrancy to the work, particularly the use of bright blue, which the Gallery's Paper Conservator has identified as Reckitt's blue. This work was first exhibited at the Macquarie Galleries in Sydney in 1957, and dates from a series created between 1955 and 1956, in which Fairweather often combined human figures with animals embodying movement and energy.