• April 06, 1998
• Vol. 49
• No. 13

The Mare Up There

Kentucky Has Bluegrass, but Only New York Has a Horse in a High Chair

SCULPTOR DONALD LIPSKI WASN'T HORSing around in 1992 when he created "The Yearling," a piece for a new public school in New York City. "I wanted to give kids something that would really be a cause for wonder," Lipski, 50, says of the life-size pinto perched atop a 20-foot-tall chair. When the school district asked him to omit the horse, Lipski replied that, all things being equine, he'd rather not. "It just lost all its magic," he says.

So last November the nonprofit Public Art Fund installed it in a corner of Central Park, where locals and tourists alike have shown unbridled enthusiasm. In May, "The Yearling" will ride off into the sunset (aboard a flatbed truck) to Denver, where its likely home will be outside the public library's children's wing. Says Lipski, a Chicago native who lives in Sag Harbor, N.Y.: "I'll probably follow behind it for a hundred miles just to watch."