Riders on the Mountain

1956

American, born 1905, Spokane, Washington; died 1986, Seattle, Washington

Kenneth Callahan was employed by Director Fuller as his right hand man at the Seattle Art Museum for almost twenty years, beginning soon after the new institution opened its doors in Volunteer Park. Callahan watched and listened as Dr. Fuller brought into the collection iconic Tang dynasty horses and calligraphic animal studies, such as those of artist Katsushika Hokusai. As he saw them at such close proximity, Callahan’s imagination must have been piqued—the images became animated and unleashed as mythic wild horses or as ambiguous figures of riders in the wilderness.

Oil on canvas

21 x 35 1/2 in. (53.3 x 90.2 cm)

Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection

56.284

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Coming to Life, The Figure in American Art 1955-1965, Feb. 25 - June 13, 1999.

Seattle, Washington, Henry Art Gallery, What It Meant to Be Modern: Seattle Art at Mid-Century, Oct.15, 1999 - Jan. 23, 2000.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Mark Tobey: Smashing Forms and Mark Tobey and Friends, Nov. 16, 2002 - April 6, 2003.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Modernism in the Pacific Northwest: The Mythic and the Mystical, June 19 - Sept. 7, 2014. Text by Patricia Junker. No cat. no., p. 39, reproduced p. 40, pl. 18.

Published ReferencesThe Art Quarterly, Spring 1957, p. 103

Kingsbury, Martha and Sarah Clark. "Northwest Traditions." Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum, 1978, p. 45

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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