Horse at Water

Nic Fiddian-Green’s life was changed when, as a young art student in 1983, he visited the British Museum in search of inspiration. He found there a single horse’s head, which would once have formed part of a team of horses pulling the chariot of the moon goddess Selene below the horizon after their nightly traverse of the skies in the Parthenon Marbles. The horse of Selene is exhausted from a night’s labours, with flaring nostrils, bulging eyes, flattened ears and a gaping mouth. Fiddian-Green’s signature horses, in contrast, are granted peace by the artist. The viewer is allowed to witness the intimate moment when the horse lowers its head to drink, something it will do only in an environment which it trusts. Fiddian-Green’s variations on Horse at Water have reached iconic status, instantly recognisable as related to the thirty-three foot tall version on Hyde Park Corner, towering over one of London’s busiest intersections.