The choice of a very young Ian McKay as artist was, as later events show, both fortuitous and brave. McKay had recently graduated from the National Art School in Sydney and was aged only 21 at the time he made the sculpture. His stylized mounted equestrian statue, about half life sized but placed above eye level on a large boulder of local granite, is dramatic and dynamic and makes a very good companion to Paterson's rollicking poem with its air of youthful bravado and a tough frontier approach to life. My research has failed to find any other sculpture of McKay's that was in any way figurative - he went on to make very different, non-figurative works. Yet it is clear that he had a very good understanding of the need for both observation from life and for a more than simply literal interpretation of the subject.
There was some complaint, however, when the sculpture was unveiled. Criticism was mainly that the horse and rider were not realistic enough, that their proportions were wrong, etc. I consider these to have been made by people who were not looking at the movement and excitement of the piece, and who were unfamiliar with modern art of the time. In my opinion it has stood the test of time well, and although it may be recognizable as of its period to those with an interest in 1960s sculpture, it does not look either old-fashioned or out of date.
Other critics were offended at the very prominent testicles possessed by the horse. One hopes that people are less easily offended some decades later, and that the young at heart continue to find amusement in this fact (one way or another). However considering that Paterson did not say that the horse was a mare or gelding, this detail is perfectly defensible, and has many precedents in equestrian and other statuary.
It is pleasing that a committee of conservative local businessmen and politicians commissioned a young and progressive artist of such talent for this project, rather than taking a safer and possibly more popular option.
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