Wishing Well Bridge (Primary Title)
Richard McLean, American, 1934 - 2014 (Artist)
“But the horse has become a hood ornament on an automobile. . . . It has lost its utilitarian role in the modern world. . . . And so it’s that effort that people make to somehow evoke the romance of the past, by dressing up in chaps and fancy cowboy gear and whatnot, and parading around a circle in an arena for a satin prize ribbon. There’s something kind of tragic about that when you consider the role horses played in civilization throughout history.” —Richard McLean
Like many Photo-Realists, Richard McLean used photographs as his primary source material when choosing his subject and composing his paintings. While other artists in his circle, such as Robert Cottingham and Robert Bechtle, used cameras to compose their own photographs for their paintings, Cottingham searched magazines for source images, such as this photograph he found of the Miss Rodeo America Pageant, 1971. Since the late 1960s, McLean had painted horses almost exclusively, yet it was the faux Western culture around the horses that interested him more than the horses themselves. In Wishing Well Bridge he eschewed the horse all together, focusing instead on the pageant winners and the ornate, empty saddle awarded as a prize. Slowly and painstakingly made over several months, McLean’s paintings belie the speed and reproducibility of the original photographs he chose.
"Get Real: Selections from the Collections of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts" William King Regional Arts Center, Abington, VA, 5 Feb - 15 May 1999; Olin Hill Gallery, Roanoke College, Salem, VA, 10 Oct - 5 Dec 1999
Washington & Lee University, Lexington October 3 - 28, 1973
"New Realist Works from the Vollection of Sydney and Frances Lewis," VPI, Blacksburg, in conjunction with SECAC, Oct. 16 - 28 1977.
"Best Products Showroom", Sacramento, California, 14 April - 1 May 1977.
"Realismus und Realit", Darmstadt, Germany, 23 May - 6 July 1975.
"Contemporary American Paintings from the Lewis Collection", Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, 12 Sept - 27 Oct. 1974.
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