Tired Horse: M.23-2015

Titles

Tired Horse

Maker(s)

Maker: Ehrlich, Georg

Entities

• Animal figure

Categories

• Sculpture

Description

Bronze figure of a horse

Legal notes

Sir Ivor and Lady Batchelor Bequest through The Art Fund

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (2015-04-27) by Batchelor, Ivor, Sir and Lady

Dating

20th Century
Production date: AD 1961

Note

With lowered head and cocked hind hoof, the exhausted horse appears to be relaxing, although the pinned back ears hint at some unseen tension or physical discomfort. As a child, Ehrlich drew the horses at the cab stands in his native Vienna, and Tired Horse – made towards the end of his life – surely recalls these animals. Having studied art at Vienna’s Kunstgewerbeschule (1912–15), Ehrlich served in the Austrian army (1915–18). After the War, he worked as a printmaker in Munich and Berlin before returning to Vienna in 1923/4, where he started producing three-dimensional work. Ehrlich’s sculpture is firmly rooted in the figurative tradition, with human and animal subjects predominating. His wife Bettina, also an artist, became expert at casting and patinating Ehrlich’s bronzes. Having left Vienna for London in 1937, Ehrlich’s Jewish roots meant that it was too dangerous for him to return home after the Anschluss (March 1938), so Bettina joined him in England a few months later; in 1947, they became British citizens. They were great friends of the composer Benjamin Britten (1913-76) and his partner, the singer Peter Pears (1910-86). It was Pears who wrote the introductory essay to Ehrlich’s 1964 Arts Council exhibition booklet, stating that with his friend’s work ‘one cannot tell where craft stops and magic begins’. Pears and Britten collected many works by Ehrlich, including another version of Tired Horse, which can still be seen today at their former home, The Red House, in Aldeburgh, Suffolk.