The Wild Horses of Sable Island® Gallery celebrates twenty years of exploration by photographer Roberto Dutesco. Thanks to the international exposure the photographs have brought to the island and its unique inhabitants, Sable Island is now Canada’s 43rd National Park and the horses have official protection. Because the new laws require that people must stay 65 feet away from the horses, Dutesco’s photographs, many of which are unreleased, may very well be the last to capture these truly wild creatures in such an unequivical way.
Once integral to humanity’s age of discovery, the ancestors of Sable’s horses were largely brought to the island by hundreds of shipwrecks. The possible origins and genetic history of these horses remain an open subject. Through strange misfortune, they have been returned to nature and are the sole terrestrial mammals on this thin sliver of sand 200 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia, where they have thrived for centuries, unafraid and unaware of man.
Since 1994 Dutesco has traveled to the island and captured portraits of the horses and the island, both ever changing and both enchanting in their unique tales. The photos have been featured in solo and group exhibitions internationally and are on permanent exhibition in Soho, New York, at the Wild Horses of Sable Island® Gallery, which was named one of the top 50 NYC destinations by Art Architecture Design. In addition, the award-winning feature film, Chasing Wild Horses, has been shown in 30 countries to over 30 million viewers.
Charity is a fundamental part of the gallery’s mandate. In 2008, in partnership with the Happy Hearts Fund, the gallery opened a kindergarten in Indonesia with murals of the wild horses painted on the building’s façade. Over the last ten years, Dutesco has donated a considerable number of photographs to help raise over one million dollars towards hundreds of charities. Notably, the gallery has contributed directly to Zoe Lucas’s Green Horse Society, whose mission is to preserve Sable Island and its wild horses.
For all inquiries, please contact info@dutescoart.com.