What The Heck … Is That Herd Of 39 Blue Steel Horses On A Montana Hillside?

Jim Dolan created one of his best-known public art sculptures as a thank you gift to Montanans, but the appreciation is as likely to come his way.

Even though it’s been 12 years since Dolan’s herd of 39 blue metal sculptures of horses, “Bleu Horses,” first appeared on a hillside along Highway 287 north of Three Forks in central Montana, he still receives about one thank you each week from motorists who were delighted by the unexpected art display.

And it’s not a lone horse in a field, he created an entire herd in natural positions that, from a distance, look just like a peaceful group of wild horses.

“Most people, when I talk to them, tell me that for the first 5 seconds they think it’s a herd of real horses,” Dolan said. “I got that ‘gotcha’ in sculpture.”

A Gift For Montanans

Art tricks aside, the sculpture comes from an earnest place. During the Great Recession, when commissioned work dried up, Dolan was inspired to create something for the people of Montana.

“I wanted to give them a big thank you for 40 years of making a living as an artist,” said Dolan, who came to Montana in the 1960s to attend college at Montana State University. 

Though he didn’t have a home for his herd — that would come later — Dolan had plenty of space in his studio north of Bozeman to build his band of horses over the course of about 15 months. But as other work picked up, eventually the horses needed to move along.

Dolan had a hillside location in mind, but he would’ve had to deal with two different landowners and it was proving to be too much of a hassle. One morning while having coffee at the Wheat Montana headquarters outside Three Forks, Dolan lamented about his homeless herd to the bakery's owner, Dean Folkvord.

The men were looking out at the land when Folkvord offered Kamp Hill, a slice of land that isn’t suitable for farming. That conversation was a stroke of good luck and is indicative of the gratitude Dolan wanted to express with this sculpture.

“Dean and I have a handshake agreement, and that’s good for us,” Dolan said. “I don’t see them ever leaving that spot.”

Horse Heist

But some of the horses did briefly leave that spot, albeit against their will. 

Shortly after the multi-day ordeal of hauling the herd to the hill in 2013 and situating each horse into place with the help of a bunch of heavy equipment and jackhammers, three horses went missing.

Word quickly spread and thanks to the community’s vigilance, the horses turned up days later about 10 miles away. After some repairs, the horses were returned to their hillside home. 

Even if the “real goofball” of a thief didn’t make it far, the story did — newspapers in Europe even reported on the horse heist — and that helped raise the profile of Bleu Horses. In the decade-plus that the horses have been hanging around that hillside, they’ve become so beloved that Dolan made smaller replicas to commemorate them and is currently making even more.

“It’s pretty well-known now, which is cool,” Dolan said.

A ‘Totally’ Different Beast

Whereas other sculptors have created horses that are galloping or leaping or otherwise in motion, Dolan set out to depict what a herd this size might really look like: Some horses are grazing, others are laying down and relaxing in the sun. “My horses are stationary because they’re supposed to be stationary.” 

Dolan also wanted to reflect how horses interact. There’s a foursome toward the back of the sculpture set off from the others — the young teenagers, as he’s come to call them.

“I always had horses up until about 10 years ago and I know horses fairly well,” said Dolan, who recently turned 77. “There are horses that stick with others, and I try to play into that. This is how 39 horses would be together.”

If the color doesn’t give them away, the horses eventually reveal themselves to anyone who looks closely enough. Though he’s crafted horses in the past that were almost taxidermal, these horses are more abstract as they’re only about 60% covered. “The Bleu Horses were a big break for me because they’re totally different.” 

Though he has no qualms about the home he found for the herd, Dolan does wish the horses were about 30 yards closer to the road so that it would be easier for people to get close to them. “Everybody’s welcome to walk up there, but you have to climb a hill to get there and you’re in Montana and there’s rattlesnakes there,” he said.

Why 39 And Bleu

Because Dolan wasn’t commissioned for this sculpture, he got to make every creative decision — even if the reasoning behind those decisions is a bit of a mystery now. 

For example, why 39 horses? 

“I think I got tired,” he said. “I wanted a herd and five or six horses? Well, that’s not very many, but 39 horses looks like it could be a real herd.”

And why the color blue? “I don’t know.”

Perhaps, Dolan said, he drew inspiration from the painting Blue Horses by Franz Marc which depicts three blue “abstract and pretty” horses. He recalled wanting an unexpected color to catch the eye of motorists and knew that other colors wouldn’t have the same effect.

No matter, Dolan’s color choice is particularly effective when the horses are set against snow. “They’re more impressive in wintertime,” he noted.

Unlike some of the other decisions, Dolan does have a ready explanation for the name: Because Blue Horses was already taken, he opted for the French spelling. “That stuck and it’s worked out really well.”

Critters Large and Small

On Dolan’s website, the sculptor has a map of where his public art can be found. Though most of these sculptures are in Montana, he’s been commissioned for sculptures as far away as Japan. 

Wyomingites may also recognize Dolan’s work: He created the giant, stainless steel golden eagle on the campus of Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne and the elk near the front of St. John’s Health in Jackson.

Critters large and small have been a common theme of his work, including a lot of horses, birds and buffalo, and he recently finished a giant, 8-foot ant in-between commissions. “I have no idea why, I just wanted to make an ant.”

A Project With a Calling

While some sculptures come from places of inspiration unknown, there’s a very important meaning behind Dolan’s latest project. He’s completed six watermelon-red telephone booths of a total of about one dozen that will be placed alongside highways in eastern Montana. Each booth will bear messages for passing motorists — “Call Home” and “Keep in Touch” —- along with the 988 phone number for the suicide prevention helpline.

Like the Bleu Horses, these colorful sculptures will speak to the importance of community, albeit in a very different way. And there’s a personal connection: Dolan lost a family member to suicide and he said these sculptures, the can’t-miss color and the simple wording are intended to convey a powerful message about mental health. 

By placing the sculptures in rural areas of the state, the goal is to reach people who may be depressed because they’re feeling isolated and have a hard time asking for help. “That’s going to be a neat project,” he said.

And no matter the project, the artist has maintained a simple goal in his 50-year career: “Hopefully the piece you’re working on right now is the best piece you’ve ever done.”