Beyond The Chase

Huon Mallalieu finds the galleries of London unusually full of horses and hounds.

Country Life, September 11, 2003

The life of a successful animal painter must be high on anyone's list of existences to be envied, but perhaps even that contains a fly in the linseed. Once a winning formula has been found it is difficult for a painter to develop further. The market knows what it wants and has little interest in change or innovation. This may be reassuring to bank managers, but must be frustrating for many artist.

It can also make life difficult for critics, since there is not always a great deal new to be said from one exhibition to the next. That is not a problem with Peter Curling's new show. His work was last seen in London as part of a joint show at the Tryon & Swann Gallery in 1999, and it is more than 10 years since his last solo exhibition, at Jorgensen Fine Art in Dublin. This time he is running his own show at The Gallery in Cork Street, and versatility and development are certainly in evidence. As he says, it is easy to become complacent, and so since 1999 he has refused commissions and has broadened his range of both subjects and mediums.

Curling was born in Waterford, brought up in the West of Ireland and now lives, paints and hunts in Tipperary. Both horses and painting were early loves, and he held his first exhibition, combining the two, at Lambourn at the age of 14.

He is not just a landscape painter in the sense that, like Munnings, he provides splendid backgrounds for his horses; here there are plenty of pure landscapes, including a number of charmers measuring 3x5 inches. As well as oil paintings there are watercolours, charcoal and sanguine drawings and also sculptures.

Horses there are aplenty, and a subject such as the 32x24 inchs Calling Up His Hounds, Michael Higgens, MFH is worthy of Munning himself. The workings of Aidan O'Brien's Ballydoyle yard provide many of them. Alongside them and the landscapes are corners and canals of Venice - and it is certainly an artistic challenge of the highest order for a painter to say anything more about that most painted of cities. On the whole Mr Curling, like Ken Howard, manages to meet it.