Capriole

This is 1983 "Capriole", 9 x 12 foot oil on canvas, in the collection of Roselyne Swig. This painting was done during my graduate school years, and is shown in the graduate exhibition at the San Francisco Art Institute. There was a juried show going on all over the school with Marcia Tucker of the New Museum of Contemporary Art (NYC) as juror. The work in the grad show was not supposed to be included, but she insisted on giving this painting a special award. I was thrilled and flattered.

This painting of a life-size Lipizzaner from the Spanish Riding School performing the capriole is part of a group of paintings I was doing then and have returned to now and then. This particular movement intrigues me because of the paradox that it appears to depict flight, but in fact is an upward explosion and kick backward that ends exactly where it started. There is no freedom involved, and the horse is held on a line by a handler at all times.