Charlotte Mullins comments on Pneumatic

JULIET MCLEOD’S painting of the racehorse Pneumatic is in the tradition of the great 18th-century horse painter George Stubbs. Buckinghamshire-born Mcleod studied at the École des Beaux-arts, Paris, and with Lynwood Palmer, considered by many to be the finest equine artist of his generation. Palmer advised her to study Stubbs’s treatise The Anatomy of the Horse and to keep riding, to understand how a horse moves, internally and externally.

A lifetime dedicated to equine art ensued and Mcleod painted some of the greatest winners of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, including Petite Etoile, Never Say Die and Mill Reef. As Stubbs did, she tried to capture the character of each horse she painted, as well as its anatomical likeness.

Trainer and owner Bill Wightman bought the yearling Pneumatic for 65gns in 1952. The horse went on to win 17 races and lived at Wightman’s Hampshire farm until his death at the age of 30.

In this painting, Mcleod portrays Pneumatic as if he were a mirror image of Stubbs’s Lustre, Held by a Groom (about 1762), now in the Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. The horses share many similar traits: pricked ears, wide-open eyes alert to the world, gleaming flanks and lean, glossy fetlocks.

Pneumatic stands in a large airy stable, with natural light illuminating the horse’s mane and muzzle. Over the manger, a paleblue blanket monogrammed with a ‘W’ marks Pneumatic out as a Bill Wightman champion.