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Deborah Butterfield, (1949- ), American artist, whose sculptures of horses have provided a means for her experiments with different materials and approaches to sculptural form. Her many sculptural incarnations of the horse express subtle variations of pose, gesture, emotion, and metaphor. Butterfield started making life-sized horse sculptures in 1973, toward the end of the Vietnam War. She saw the mare as a symbol for patience, intuition, strength, and affirmation of life, standing in opposition to the destructive …

…that she likes the image of a gallery full of sitting horses because it is an image of vulnerability and strength at the same time. Born in San Diego, California, Butterfield studied at San Diego State University from 1966 to 1968 and at the University of California at San Diego in 1969. She then transferred to the University of California at Davis, where she completed her B.A. degree in 1972 and her master of fine arts degree in 1973.