With extraordinary focus over 25 years, Butterfield has created sculptures with a single subject: horses. And with an introduction by Jane Smiley (A Thousand Acres
), an essay by poet and art critic John Yau, poems by the late Vicki Hearne and pages of beautifully reproduced work, Butterfield comes off as a thoroughbred in the world of art. As Smiley says, "I have never met a horse lover who did not gasp at the truth of Butterfield's horses," and this catalogue, timed to coincide with a traveling exhibition of Butterfield's work, is sure to delight anyone with a passion for horses and art. Whether her works are found in steel or iron, wood, barbed wire or cast bronze, her ability to animate a pile of seemingly lifeless materials with the shape and spirit of a horse can be truly breathtaking. Particularly intriguing are the pieces made with giant metal letters—the shape of the letters transforming magically into shoulders, hocks and arched neck. Even nonbelievers will be impressed with Butterfield's technical mastery over her mediums, particularly her intricate variation on the "lost wax" method of casting bronze. Strangely, one 1979 piece cited often in the text, in which Butterfield cleverly integrated the barbed wire found on her Montana ranch, is not pictured here, but anyone with an interest in the possibilities of material, or in what constitutes form, will be pleased by this selection. (Oct.)
