What I love here is how little is spelled out and how much is suggested. Faces are only hinted at, but the body language tells you everything—hands in pockets against the damp, shoulders angled toward the action, small clusters deep in conversation. The painting doesn’t freeze a heroic instant; it holds the ordinary minutes before and after the race, when time stretches and the weather decides how the day will feel.

For us, it’s a Continuum piece. Even now, at 95 and still painting every day, Dad works from this same mix of memory and observation. He’s less interested in the scoreboard and more interested in how a rainy steeplechase actually felt: the cool air, the softened edges, the way color flares up in slickers and tents against a muted field. That way of seeing—letting weather and atmosphere carry the story—runs all through his work, from early sporting scenes to the paintings he’s making in the studio today.

Studio Notes: Oil on panel. Loose, broken brushwork; cool, misty palette balanced by bright rain gear and striped tents. Figures clustered in conversation with horse and rider receding into the background.

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