Arthur Kern (American/Louisiana, b. 1931), "Horse on Back", polyester resin, signed and dated "Kern 76" on neck, h. 6 3/4 in., w. 13 in., d. 7 1/4 in., painted wood base, overall h. 9 3/4 in. Provenance: Property of the New Orleans Museum of Art, Sold to Benefit the Acquisitions Fund. Note: In July of 2016, artist Arthur Kern closed a successful solo show at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. A retired Tulane University art professor, the elusive Kern had no serious intention of showing his sculptures publicly, preferring to work privately for himself and independent of the influences of the outside art market. Through a series of coincidences, he was approached by the Ogden Museum and consented to an exhibition, a fortunate occurrence for the art world. The result was a showing of forty years of artwork rare in its artistic purity. As John D'Addario writes for The Advocate, Kern's works, "are similarly equal parts engaging and macabre, like Hieronymous Bosch figures come to three-dimensional life."
The lot offered here is one of Kern's small-scale equestrian sculptures, a horse rolled on its side, its limbs disintegrated. The work is quite similar to the series of sculptures that were exhibited at the Ogden this spring and described by Campbell Robertson in The New York Times, "A large room of the exhibition is dedicated to the horse sculptures, some life-size, some purse-size, all surreal variations on a small horse model he made in the early 1970s because, he said, 'one day I decided now I’m going to make a horse.'”
Ref.: Robertson, Campbell. “At 84, an Artist Tries Something New: Displaying His Work.” Mar. 28, 2016. The New York Times. www.nytimes.com. Accessed Aug. 14, 2016. D’Addario, John. “Elusive Sculptor Arthur Kern’s Work Impressive, Sometimes Disturbing.” The Advocate. Apr. 27, 2016. www.theadvocate.com. Accessed Aug. 14, 2016.

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