Man Meets Horse

Tatler Home 2013

Violet Hudson

'Scuse me, but I've got a head of Christ here'. 'Right ho- just drop it outside,' says a cheerful Nic Fiddian-Green to the white-van man delivering an enormous sculpture. We are standing in his freezing- cold, rickety Surrey studio. "It's a converted sheep-shearing shed,' he tells me. "When I first moved in, there were rotting carcasses everywhere.' The face of God incarnate being delivered isn't the oddest thing that happens during our meeting. Gale-force winds are shaking the studio like the tornado in The Wizard of Oz; 25-foot-tall horses's heads are dotted around; and, at one point, the proceedings are interrupted by a vicar coming in to bless the space.

It's all par for the course for Nic, 49, who studied sculpture at Chelsea College of Art and, after seeing the 'glorious' head of the Horse of Selene at the British Museum, made them his main subject. Happily, horses tend to be a rich person's game. His biggest piece can cost up to 1.5 million pounds (they're 35 feet tall and weigh the same as 36 Frankels). They grace the grounds of many a grand house (the Earl  and Countess of Derby have one at Knowsley Hall in Merseyside, and the Dowanger Duchess of Devonshire keeps hers in her private stables), and they can also be found at Ascot, Glyndebourne, Goodwood racecourse and Wellington College.
Where once landscapes designed by Capability Brown were the signifier of wealth and taste, now parkland is nothing without a Fiddian-Green horse's head towering above it. 'Nic came to stay and saw the outlook over the valley, and wanted to create a piece for that space,' says Carphone Warehouse co-founder David Ross, who has three sculptures at Nevill Holt, his house at Leicestershire, where he also runs an opera festival. 'They're very cool,' he adds. Lady Derby notes: 'We were given a cheque as a wedding present specifically to commission a work of art. I immediately knew I wanted to buy a Nic Fiddian-Green. He captures the majesty of horses.' Nic has seen a huge boom in interest in his work in the past few years-due, in large part, to the enormous Still Water sculpture, which stands next to Marble Arch like a ballerinas food en pointe, totally eclipsing the grubby sugar-lump monument. 'Well, that piece was initially commissioned for Lady Bamford in 2005,' he tells me. But proceedings were held up when Nic became seriously ill with leukaemia after the sculpture had been ordered. 'My wife called Lady Bamford and told her that she might want to commission someone else- it was that bad. But she said, "No, I will pray for him, and when he is better, he can finish the piece." Nic recovered- party thanks to the motivation of having work to do. In fact, he has a pile of plaster at the end of his hospital bed, where he modelled the first drafts of the piece. 'I tiptoed in to see him.' says Gerry Farrell, Nic's gallerist and friend. 'I had to go through a decontamination chamber- it was all very serious. Then I go in and Nic's sculpting away, listening to Van Morrison in the chemo ward.' The original piece  was first installed at marble Arch while the Bamfords sought planning permission, and then taken to Daylesford, their Gloucestershire estate. But it was much missed at marble Arch, so Nic sculpted a copy for the spot. Despite these illustrious patrons, Eton-educated Nic is as down to earth as a limbo dancer. In his studio, there is no team of scurrying assistants- just him, his chisel and his blowtorch. He looks like a farmer as he strides around in his waxed jacket and flat cap, adjusting a pin here, smoothing some clay there- with Led Zeppelin playing at full volume. His hands are roughened by his work and covered in plaster. from the studio, over the hills, you can see one of his pieces dwarfing actual horses. And a little further across the fields is his home, where he lives with his wife and four teenage children. And their six horses. Is this man obsessed? Well, there's only one other thing that captures his imagination to quite the same level: Kinder egg toys. 'I've got over 300,' he chuckles. 'I've always loved them. They're so silly.'  

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