Harnessing Horse Power: How McClelland Barclay included horses in his art
Considering how often horse power appears in McClelland Barclay's art works in the 1920s and 30s, I think he must have been a horse lover. Read on to see see how Mac captured the enduring and powerful human-to-horse connection in paintings, decorative objects and jewellery.
20th century change in horse power
The horse is surely the “aristocrat” of animals domesticated by man...horse-power also afforded great advances in transport" Pita Kelekna, The Horse in Human History
McClelland Barclay's 1927 "Action" for Atlantic Gasoline billboard series shows a woman galloping on horseback
Early in the 20th century, the historic transportation role of horses changed with the invention of the automobile and mass migration from rural to city living. Instead of horse-drawn carriages, private automobiles began changing the way people moved around. For those who remained in the countryside, automobiles were a faster route to get into town.
Yet horses remained part of people's lives, even if only in pictures and stories.
By the mid 1920s, General Motors owned a stable of car companies and the Fisher Body Company, the Detroit-based manufacturer of auto bodies. Along with increasing engine horsepower and other mechanical improvements, part of GM's new car sales pitch was their enclosed Fisher Bodies offering a more comfortable way to ride in style.
Cars were no longer just mechanical beasts replacing horse and carriage, they were designed to convey social status. McClelland Barclay's illustrated automobile advertising helped tell the story.
Illustrating early automotive horse power
In 1923, Mac was hired by one of the seven Fisher Bodies founding brothers to paint their magazine advertising. He was tasked to depict a variety of social tableau scenes of fashionable people enjoying leisure time enabled by their car. For nearly ten years, Barclay painted Fisher Body ads with many types of equestrian pursuits like horseback riding, horse races and polo matches.
Mac's illustrations for Fisher Bodies were also notable for showing just a hint of a car, and featuring beautiful women with horses, in stables or as race spectators. His illustrations reflect women were both car drivers and influential in a household's automobile purchase.
McClelland Barclay illustrations for Fisher Bodies feature beautiful women & horses L to R: Saturday Evening Post 1925; Ladies Home Journal 1930; Country Gentleman 1925
Country Gentleman magazine reached an affluent rural customer. In contrast to ads in the Saturday Evening Post, or Ladies Home Journal, Mac painted country scenes with farm animals and horses, as shown above right detail of 1925 ad for Fisher Bodies.
"From January to June 1925, farm or country scenes are interspersed with outdoor scenes; all are fully realized paintings with detailed backgrounds and subjects.", McClelland Barclay: Painter of Beautiful Women & More, p 34.
Horse and carriage trade
Besides Mac's horse powered art, another remarkable Fisher Body connection to horses - or at least horse-drawn carriages - is the Fisher Body logo. Their line-drawn logo was introduced on Fisher Body advertisements in 1926, but was not designed by Barclay.
The Fisher Body logo is similar to a Napoleon-era gilded carriage from a century earlier. The design cleverly suggests craftsmanship, prestige and the comfortable premium ride you would experience in GM's stable of automobile brands - from Cadillac and Buick to Chevrolet and Oldsmobile - all built with Fisher Bodies. Indeed, it was the challenge for children to build a scale model carriage for the Fisher Body Craftsman's Guild contest launched in 1930.
Fisher Body carriage logo in horse-themed ads illustrated by McClelland Barclay L to R: Saturday Evening Post 1928; House & Garden 1926; Barclay's youth with horse carriage model for launch of Fisher Craftsman's Guild 1930
Western romance stories and golden horses
In my book, I describe how in 1930 Mac began commercializing his fame as an illustrator by launching his decorative arts company, McClelland Barclay Art Products, Inc. It is thanks to my unique access to Mac's personal memoirs that I could write his biography, and include some of his sketches and plaster cast of horse heads in chapter four (below left).
L to R: McClelland Barclay's horse head sketch & plaster cast, signed pair of 1930s gold-plated horse head bookends.
The sketch and plaster cast of a horse head show Mac's hand in the development of the pair of gold-plated horse head bookends (above right). These are one of Mac's signed metal decor works produced in the 1930s. He sculpted a variety of Art Deco bookends, small animal figures from land and sea, mythology and nudes which are among the bronze-plated decorative art pieces produced for home or office.
During the '30s, Mac's paintings of horses and many pretty women began appearing regularly on the covers of magazines like Pictorial Review and Redbook (centre, featured image). Horses also appeared in Barclay's illustrated fiction stories.
McClelland Barclay, the artist, is known to Cosmopolitan's readers for the glamorous ladies and gentlemen he portrays. On holidays he stops painting changeable humans and starts painting the changeable ocean. And when he has a little time off, not long enough to cope with the ocean but too long to waste, he sculpts horses and polo figures in smooth white porcelain. - Cosmopolitan, April 1936, Enchantment Ink, p. 4
Horses and romance in McClelland Barclay story illustrations in Cosmopolitan, L to R: October 1935, November 1937
1930s horses in McClelland Barclay jewellery
The power of horses can even be found in several pieces of McClelland Barclay jewellery made by Rice-Weiner & Co. The framed sterling silver mare and colt brooch is marked "McClelland Barclay" and was among the earlier and more rare sterling silver jewellery pieces made. Another rare piece is the goldtone and green metal horse and abstract tree brooch. A later piece is the gold and rhodium plated double horsehead brooch stamped with the McClelland Barclay mark on the back.
L to R: McClelland Barclay brooches: sterling silver framed mare & colt; rare gold tone & green tree; double horsehead
Horse power today
I'm sure Mac loved painting horses as visual metaphors for the capabilities of GM's cars, Fisher Bodies carriage comfort and leisure time pursuits. His story illustrations and works in other media - sculpture, jewellery - show Mac understood the powerful human connection with horses.
Today horse power is universal. As Chinese culture celebrates this "Year of the Horse", at the same time cowboy culture in America is enjoying a modern revival in fashion. Stetson hats, fringe and cowboy boots continue as popular and wearable symbols of pursuing the American dream.
I think this spirited horse power is what McClelland Barclay captured in his illustrations, horse-themed decor and jewellery from a century ago and that still resonates today.
