Treasures from Our West: “Berliner” by Deborah Butterfield

Originally featured in Points West in Fall 2009

Deborah Butterfield’s bronze sculpture Berliner

In the Whitney Western Art Museum, visitors can see Deborah Butterfield’s bronze horse sculpture Berliner. This Montana artist creates sculptures of horses using non-traditional materials such as weathered wood cast in bronze. Even so, her horses are filled with lifelike personalities, individuals free from the constraints of riders.

Berliner looks like wood, but it is actually bronze. Butterfield uses a unique casting process to create one-of-a-kind sculptures. First, a foundry makes molds of individual wooden sticks and casts them into bronze. She then bends, cuts, and welds the bronze sticks into an armature or skeleton for a horse sculpture. When the armature is finished, Butterfield adds more wood sticks to fill out the horse form.

Then, the foundry casts additional wood sticks, and Butterfield assembles the final bronze sculpture. After that, she carefully applies a patina, heats the bronze surface, and adds several coats of pigment and chemicals. This process creates a specific color that makes the finished bronze look like real wood. See Berliner on display in the Whitney with other historic and contemporary works depicting horses and animals of the West.

Deborah Butterfield (b. 1949). Berliner, 1989. Bronze. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. W.D. Weiss. 17.98

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