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Then and Now
With Fred Glueckstein |
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Richard Stone Reeves
America's Greatest Artist of
Champion Racehorses |
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The second of two columns |
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Richard Stone Reeves's equine oil paintings hang in the homes of private people and
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public institutions around the world. Over the last six decades, Reeves painted more champion Thoroughbred portraits than any American portrait artist ever. He painted such great champions such as Armed, Citation, Native Dancer, Bold Ruler, Sword Dancer, Swaps, Kelso, Nashua, Secretariat, and Seattle Slew. The beauty of Reeves's artistry will insure his position as the greatest equine portrait painter this country has ever seen. |
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How did Reeves go about painting his marvelous equine portraits? |
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Reeves explained his method of painting Thoroughbreds in a letter years ago to Kent Hollingsworth, the former editor of the Blood-Horse magazine. "When the horse is brought out, I ask the groom to walk him about for a minute or two and then stand him for a few moments," Reeves wrote in Thoroughbreds I Have Known. "In this way I can get a good idea how he |
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normally holds himself. After this study, I am ready to do preliminary work for a painting." |
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Reeves explained to Hollingsworth that he would make numerous notes and rough sketches on the spot and take some photographs.
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"In my preliminary work, my rough sketches are done with a thin mixture of oil paint and turpentine on a high-grade paper of at least 10 inches by 12 inches in size," explained Reeves. "The color studies are held up against the horse's coat to make sure the color is correct. The oil paint applied in this matter dries very quickly so that in an hour's time the pad can be closed without smearing the paint."
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Back in his studio, Reeves carefully studied his notes, sketches, color paintings, and photographs. He decided on how best to pose the horse in the painting. "Just before the portrait is to be drawn out on the canvass, I make a finished pencil sketch... The final painting is now ready to commence," wrote Reeves. "Fresh, clean, and crisp colors are important to the final results. Sometimes I paint the horse first and then the background, and at other times I might do the upper part of the background first, then the horse, and finally the foreground... I find the most difficult thing is to make each painting entirely different - in composition, background and pose."
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Magnificent reproductions of Reeves's oil paintings and his wonderful recollections can be found in a number of books that are highly prized by collectors. They include Thoroughbreds I Have Known (1973), Classic Lines: A Gallery of Great Thoroughbreds (1975), Decade of Champions: The Greatest Years in the History of Thoroughbred Racing , 1970-1980 (1980), The Golden Post (1985), Legends: The Art of Richard Stone Reeves (1989), Royal Blood (1994), and Crown Jewels (1997).
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Seattle Slew by Richard Stone Reeves
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In celebration of Belmont Park's 100 th anniversary in 2005, Reeves and Eclipse Award winning historian Edward L. Bowen collaborated on the artist's eighth book, Belmont Park: A Century of Champions. It included a treasure trove of 70 paintings; more than 30 were new works created for the book.
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Reeves once wrote: "Not often is one fortunate enough to earn a living doing something he enjoys. I am one of those lucky people." Those acquainted with his paintings must also be counted among the lucky people that were fortunate enough to discover a great artist.
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Richard Stone Reeves passed away on October 7, 2005 in Greenport , New York. Prior to his death, Reeves, at the age of 85, looked back with fondness at the great Thoroughbreds he had painted and known. Of the many great champions, one had a special place in his heart: War Admiral, the horse he watched as a 17-year-old win the Triple Crown at Belmont Park in 1937. |
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"How often I think back to that day," he wrote fondly in Legends: The Art of Richard Stone Reeves. "Here was the embodiment of so much that has meant everything to my professional career: the wonderful creature that is the Thoroughbred; the mysterious mixture of the expected and the unexplainable of genetics; the uplifting harmony that man and racehorse are capable of authoring; and finally, an inner inspiration that gave rise to my longing to be a painter of such glorious animals." |
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Read comments or post your own comments to this article at the bottom of this page. |
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Fred Glueckstein was raised in New York City and attended Queens College of the City University of New York and New York University. Fred has written extensively about horses. His work has appeared in The Chronicle of the Horse, The Backstretch, Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred, Horses in Art, Equestrian, 2007 Preakness Souvenir Magazine, ARMY, The Cavalry Journal, Finest Hour, the official journal of the Churchill Centre and Societies, and other publications. His non-fiction book on baseball titled The '27 Yankees was published by Xlibris in 2005. Of Men, Women and Horses, a collection of stories, was also published by Xlibris in 2006. Fred and his wife Eileen live in Maryland. They have two children, Brian and Debra.
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Copyright © 2008 All rights reserved. The above article is the property of the Author and may not be duplicated or redistributed in any way without permission. |
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