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76 ja n ua r y/ f e b r ua r y 2 015 U n tac k e d organizing committee, leonardo da Vinci's horse, inc., acknowledged that dent's version of the model realistically wouldn't have worked anyway, being ana- tomically inaccurate and apparently based on a Quar- ter horse whose characteristics don't resemble horses of the 15th century. someone would have to fix it, and there was only one woman for the job. The chosen one nina Akamu was born in oklahoma, but as the daughter of an Air force serviceman, she grew up all around the world. At the age of 10, when her family moved to Japan, she began taking lessons at an inter- national english riding academy, and she carried that passion for horses into her career as an artist. in 1983, Akamu had become the youngest inductee into the national sculpture society. seven years later she was the youngest artist to advance to fellow. she'd won awards from the national Acad- emy of design, the national sculpture society, the Allied Artists of America, the national Arts Club and the society of Animal Artists. And Akamu also studied sculpture in italy for 12 years, working on multiple equestrian pieces during that time. if any- one could complete da Vinci's horse, the committee believed, it was her. impressed by what their son had told them of dent's efforts, frederik and lena meijer planned a visit to tallix Art foundry in Beacon, n.Y., one of the best foundries in the united states, where the dent model had been based and where Akamu had two other sculptures ready for casting. As soon as they saw her work, fred said, "we knew she could do it. when we saw her Pegasus and her Fighting Lions, we were so impressed that we bought them for our gardens." with the meijers' financial support committed (the exact amount they contributed to the project has never been confirmed, but the standardly quoted fig- ure is $2.5 million), Akamu set to work. "my job initially was to improve upon dent's model," said Akamu, who worked on the piece for four months before giving up. she couldn't make the amount of revisions it needed. "so i started again, entirely again," she said. tHE HorsE in art The twin of The American Horse, known as Il Cavallo, was unveiled just a few days before its continental counterpart in 1999 in Milan, Italy. PHoTo CourTeSy of MeIjer GarDenS Patrons Fred and Lena Meijer at the installation of The American Horse in 1999. PHoTo CourTeSy of MeIjer GarDenS

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