Hell Hound

Additional Information

Defiance was Leigh’s battle cry, and Hell Hound defies just about every law of nature. Gravity, for instance. Both horse and buckeroo seem bent on being airborne, and Leigh engages the moment when animal and man are all but flying and the stirrup and lariat are about to become untethered. In capturing this particular moment, Leigh defies time, insists on stopping it at a blinding shutter speed. Hat and dust hang in suspended animation. As for the laws of equine nature, the attempt to ride this beast at all is a prime example of sheer human hubris. William Robinson Leigh was an unsparing individualist and a famous contrarian. Talent earned him a ticket to Munich, and he spent twelve years at the academy there, perfecting his craft. Back in New York, the struggling young realist painter in a New York that had fallen for Cezanne met Thomas Moran. Moran prodded Leigh to light out and seek the “American” in American art. In 1906 he made a fateful journey to Arizona and New Mexico. Leigh’s eyes opened to the open spaces, ancient peoples, and brash cowboys, and the American West would become his principal subject. Leigh would come to be regarded in the same breath as Remington and Russell.

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