Racehorses

In the foreward to the catalogue for his one-man exhibition held in July 1914 Bomberg wrote his own manifesto: 'I APPEAL to a Sense of Form. In some of the work I show in the first room, I completely abandon Naturalism and Tradition. I am searching for an Intenser expression. In other work in this room, where I have used Naturalistic Form, I have stripped it of all relevant matter. I look upon Nature, while I live in a steel city. Where decoration happens, it is accidental. My object is the construction of Pure Form. I reject everything that is not Pure Form. I hate the colours of the East, the Modern Mediaevalist, and the Fat Man of the Renaissance' (see exhibition catalogue, David Bomberg: Paintings and Drawings, London, Arts Council, Tate Gallery, 1967, p. 21).

In the present work, executed in 1912-13, Bomberg has reduced the subject matter of the racehorses and riders to an expression of their essential forms, using a limited vocabulary. This simplification and reduction of forms to flat planes can also be seen in Bomberg's later student work, The Vision of Ezekiel, 1912 (Tate Britain).