Growing up in Oklahoma City, Jean always knew art was her career. After attending Parsons School of Design and spending six years freelance illustrating and designing in New York City, she migrated to upstate New England to be around horses, country, and help create an innovative arts center. It was during these years she showed at the Society of Illustrators in New York City, Saratoga, N.Y. Middleburg, VA as well as opening the International Museum of the Horse in Lexington, KY, with a one-woman show. She also produced an edition of lithographs that are collected nation wide. She also illustrated equestrian classics such as Centered Riding, and Linda Tellington-Jones TTEAM publications.

In 1989, left New England and began doing sculpture, most notably the equestrian sporthorse. Her work has been shown in Lenox, MA, Simsbury, CT, Hamilton, MA, Radnor, PA, Sculpture in the Park, Loveland, CO, Del Mar, CA, and Santa Fe, NM.

Jean MacFarland’s delicate watercolors and paintings of horses constitute a unique approach to the time-honored traditions of equestrian art. Jean produced the Triptych Collection to commemorate the level of intense commitment involved in the three disciplines that constitute the Horse Trials or Three Day Eventing: Dressage, Stadium Jumping, and Cross Country.

The initial impetus for these three images began with Sports Illlustrated magazine sent the artist to cover the 1976 Olympic selection trials for the U.S. Three Day Event Team, as well as the World Championships in Lexington, KY, in 1978. Her work was exhibited in the show “The Artist as Journalist”, at the Society of Illustrators in New York. The 1978 commission resulted in the 25 acrylic paintings called “Precarious Moments”. During the World Championship Three Day Event in 1978, she opened at the International Museum of the Horse in Lexington, with a one-woman show, as a prime exponent of contemporary horse art.

Jean is married to Don Altshuler and lives in Santa Fe, NM. Her work now involves commissions and extends to painting and sculpture related to the theme of the interconnectedness of all life.