Notes

Boris Gorelik writes:

"Tretchikoff first painted horse races in the late 1960s and continued doing so well into the 1970's. 'I remember how we went to the race course in Cape Town', says the journalist and art critic, Amanda Botha. 'The winner was determined by examining a photo finish. To Tretchikoff, it was too marvellous for words. I worked at a daily newspaper, so he asked me to get the photo finish for him. When I brought the shots, Tretchikoff told me:"This is going to be a painting!"

For this series, in order to portray his subject as accurately and vividly as possible, Tretchikoff consulted with the Cape Argus's racing editor.

Tretchikoff produced few such studies. 'They are very difficult to do and take up a lot of time', he explained. 'When you paint action, you cannot have your models standing still.'

Steeplechase is one of the few known examples of depicting jump racing in Tretchikoff's oeuvre. Another remarkable feature of this canvas is that, unlike his other horse-racing efforts, Steeplechase is not what he called an 'action study', an attempt to capture motion by showing several phases of movement in the same painting. For this work, Tretchikoff used a conventional approach.

The painting was first exhibited at Birmingham, England, in 1972. Four years later, it became one of the highlights of Tretchikoff's South African tour. It was featured in the adverts for the tour."

Provenance

Acquired from the Tretchikoff Foundation