Couple donates scrap metal horse to Rockford Art Museum

ROCKFORD, Ill. (AP) - The Rockford Art Museum isn't horsing around.

The (Rockford) Register Star reports that Richard and Lon Behr have donated a 8-foot-tall, 800 pound horse made from scrap metal to the museum. It stands in the gift shop - a location Richard Behr likes because it will be seen by patrons as they pass through on their way to the museum's galleries.

The museum joins more than 100 other museums - including the Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York - to have such a sculpture created by artist Deborah Butterfield.

This horse is significant to both Behr and the community because the scrap metal comes from a Rockford metal recycling business founded by Behr's father and grandfather more than a century ago.