Horses in Art - An Equine Vision Magazine

Richard Stone Reeves: Americas Renowned Artist of Champion Racehorses

by Fred Glueckstein

War Admiral ridden by jockey Charley Kurtsinger won the Belmont Stakes and the Triple Crown at Belmont Park in New York on Saturday, June 5, 1937. In an electrifying performance, the chestnut colt ran the mile and a half course over a fast track at 2:28 3/5, which equaled the American record and broke the track record at Belmont Park established by his sire Man o War in 1920. War Admirals feat was even more remarkable because of the courage he displayed: the Thoroughbred had accidentally torn his heel in the starting gate, and it bled during the entire race.

Among the crowd of 30,000 applauding War Admiral and Kurtsinger on that clear, warm 80-degree afternoon at Belmont Park in New York was a 17-year-old named Richard Stone Reeves. The young man was transfixed by the beauty of the Thoroughbreds and the color and excitement of the sport, inspiring him to become an equine artist. Today, Richard Stone Reeves is considered America's greatest painter of racehorses, one who has painted more commissioned portraits of champion Thoroughbreds than any other in history.

Secretariat
by Richard Stone Reeves
Born in New York City in 1919 to Edna Simonson and Mathew Sully Reeves, Richard Stone Reeves was raised in Garden City, Long Island. As a child, he took an early interest in horses, as his mothers family owned Standardbred racehorses. His father, Matthew Sully Reeves, was a direct descendant of the celebrated 19th century American portrait painter Thomas Sully, whose portraits included President Andrew Jackson and Queen Victoria. Like his celebrated relative, Richard showed artistic talent. "As early as I can remember, drawing and painting were things I just had to do. All of my spare time was spent with pad and pencil," Reeves remembered. "When I grew a little older, watercolors were bought for me, then pastels and oils. My subjects were anything and everything, though horses seemed to interest me most."

Reevess love of Thoroughbreds and horseracing can be traced to Belmont Park, which was near his Long Island home. "It was September of 1933. I was thirteen years old and was taken to Belmont by an uncle, Edward Buhler, who had owned some racehorses a few years before. It was the day of the Belmont Futurity for two-year olds, and at the time it was the richest race in the world, with a purse of $100,000," Reeves remembered. "It was a miserable Saturday afternoon but I loved it anyway. The horse that won the Futurity was Singing Wood, owned by Mrs. John Hay Whitney. I was absolutely entranced and knew then that I was hooked on the colorful sport of Thoroughbred racing for the rest of my life."

The convergence of Reeves two passions horses and painting would shape his life forever and take him on a remarkable personal journey into the worlds of Thoroughbred racehorses and portrait art.

In 1941, Reeves graduated from the College of Fine Arts at Syracuse University. His aspiration was to paint horses; however, when the U.S. entered the war, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. The Navy used his artistic talent at the Bureau of Aeronautics in Washington, D.C. where he drew silhouettes of enemy aircraft for Naval Recognition Manuals. Reeves was commissioned as an ensign a year later and volunteered for an assignment overseas.

Between secret missions for Naval Intelligence in China, Reeves painted scenes in the countryside; his subjects were often local peasants and temples. While in Yunnan Province, he was pleasantly surprised to learn that an officer named Lt. Commander Bob Johnson was president of Roosevelt Raceway, the most successful harness racing track in America. Johnson liked his work and told Reeves to look him up after the war.

After returning home, Reeves embarked on a career as a painter of horses. He painted the top trotter of the day, the Hambletonian winner Titan Hanover. Reeves showed the painting to Bob Johnson, the officer he met in China. After conferring with the Board of Directors of Roosevelt Raceway, Johnson purchased it and commissioned Reeves to paint five more.

Reeves received his first real break in 1947, when he was commissioned by J. Samuel Perlman, the editor of the Morning Telegraph and Daily Racing Form, to paint the Horse of the Year, Armed. When LIFE magazine published his painting of the champion Calumet Farm Thoroughbred in 1948, Reevess talent was recognized nationally. Afterwards, he received several other commissions, including that of Gallorette, the champion race mare of the day. For the most part, however, Reeves recalled, "Commissions continued to come in slowly and spasmodically, and I worked hard to try to improve my technique. Like all young painters."

Reeves' style did gradually improve, but he also knew that he had to work on his backgrounds, skies, shadow, and light. During the 1960s the museums and private galleries of Europe became his study hall. "My trips to Europe," Reeves recalled, "were just as much to expose myself to the works of the old masters in the museums and fine homes in England and Europe. There was a determination to improve my own work, which I knew had weaknesses, and I became engrossed in the techniques of the eighteenth and nineteenth century painters of Europe whose works I so admired."

In the following decades, Richard Stone Reeves became the premier American painter of horses. He painted hundreds of oil portraits of Thoroughbreds in the United States and Europe. (In 1958, Reeves painted his first Thoroughbred abroad: Ballymoss, Europes best racehorse. This led to other commissions.) Famous horse owners and breeders vied for his services. Over the years, Reeves has painted almost all the legends of horseracing in the twentieth century, champions like Citation, Native Dancer, Bold Ruler, Sword Dancer, Swaps, Kelso, Nashua, Secretariat, and Seattle Slew to name only some.

Reeves' oil paintings hang in private homes and public institutions around the world. Gregg Ladd, owner of the famed Cross Gate Gallery in Lexington, Kentucky, has known Reeves for many years and is fully acquainted with his works. Asked for his professional assessment of the artist, Ladd told this writer, "Over the last six decades he has been commissioned to paint more champion Thoroughbred portraits than any portrait artist ever. His loyal clientele of important Thoroughbred owners and breeders will insure his position as the greatest portrait painter of all time."

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 this way I can get a good idea how he normally holds himself. After this study, I am ready to do preliminary work for a painting." Reeves went on to explain to Hollingsworth that he would make numerous notes and rough sketches on the spot and take some photographs.

Reeves continued. "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. The color studies are held up against the horses coat to make sure the color is correct. The oil paint applied in this matter dries very quickly so that in an hours time the pad can be closed without smearing the paint."

Back in his studio, Reeves would carefully study his notes, the sketches, the color paintings and the photographs, and he would decide on how best to pose the horse in the painting. "Just before the portrait is to be drawn out on the canvas, I make a finished pencil sketch . . . . The final painting is now ready to commence," Reeves wrote. "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."

Magnificent reproductions of Reevess 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). In celebration of Belmont Parks 100th anniversary on May 4, 2005, Reeves and Eclipse-Award-winning historian Edward L. Bowen collaborated on the artists eighth book, Belmont Park: A Century of Champions, which includes a treasure trove of 70 paintings more than 30 are new works created especially for the book.

Today, at age 85, Richard Stone Reeves looks back with fondness at the great Thoroughbreds he has painted and known. Of the many great champions, one has 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. "How often I think back to that day. 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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