Frederic Remington (1861-1909) depicted the life of the cowboy during the 1800’s and 1890’s better perhaps than any other artist of his time. Those familiar with Frederic Remington's bronze work know it as a force that revolutionized American sculpture. His extraordinary creative talent portrayed a frontier west rich with resolute cowboys, horses exuberant with stamina and ferocity, and Native Americans charged with proud defiance. He thought of himself as a true citizen of the American West. A native Canton, New York, Remington left college at the age of 19, looking for adventure in the West. Remington operated his own ranch in Kansas and in 1886 he gave it up as a failure and came back to the East. The experience served him well in his later career as an artist. As an artist, Remington first made a name for himself as an illustrator and painter, and began sculpting only 14 years before his death in 1909. The first Remington in clay was "Bronco Buster", completed in 1885. Among his admirers were Theodore Roosevelt, who once said that "Remington portrayed a most characteristic and yet vanishing type of American life. The soldier, the cowboy, the rancher, the Indian, the horses and cattle of the plains will live in his pictures and bronzes, I verily believe for all time.
Charles Marion Russell was born on March 19, 1864 in Oakhill, Missouri, died in Great Falls, Montana in 1936. He was a self-taught artist, drawing inspiration from his life experiences as a cowboy. He specialized in western style life: cowboys, Indians, buffalo, bears cougars and his favorite – horses. The viewer of Russell’s bronzes share in his feeling of delight and despair, his moments of high excitement and those of quiet humor. The sculptor was blessed with an ability to see those critical details that gave his works excitement of life. Some of his bronzes are more impressionistic that others. By 1914 he had established himself as a success, as a sculptor and painter. In 1882, at the age of eighteen, Russell worked as a cattle hand. The harsh winter of 1886 and 1887 provided the inspiration for a painting that would give Charlie his first taste of publicity. According to stories, he was working on the O-H Ranch in the Judith Basin of Central Montana when the ranch foreman received a letter from the owner, asking how the cattle herd had weathered the winter. Instead of a letter, the ranch foreman sent a postcard-sized watercolor Charlie painted of gaunt steer being watched by wolves under a gray winter sky. The ranch owner showed the postcard to friends and business acquaintances and eventually displayed it a shop window in Helena. After this, work would come steadily to the artist.
Carl Kauba was born in Vienna in 1865 and died in 1922. Although he signed "Carl", Kauba’s birth certificate officially identifies him as "Karl" son of an Austrian shoemaker. He never visited America himself but was inspired by the romantic stories written by the German, Carl May and many photographs and illustrations that he had seen. Also inspired by the possessions of a complete Western saddle and other Indian artifact that an American friend from Ohio sent as gifts. In contrast to most artists, Kauba’s success as a businessman was equal to his artistic achievements. He worked in a studio in his home and personally directed the casting of his clay models in the local foundries. Pierre Jules Mene was born in Paris in 1810 and died there in 1871. Mene was the most successful and prolific animalier of his day. He was born into an apparently prosperous artisan family. Mene’s father was a skilled metal tuner and was able to teach his son the basic’s of working a metal foundry and the principles of sculpture. He interpreted his own sketches into bronze casts by his own hand and rapidly established a reputation for himself. Mene won four medals at the Salon and at major exhibitions, receiving the Cross of the Le`gion d`Honneur in 1861. The French painter Carle Vennet, and the English painter Landseer influenced him. His bronzes inherited much of the warm, friendly style of romanticism but he soon developed his own style of naturalism. He became the most important and influenced animalier o his time. 
Auguste Rodin was born in 1840 and died in 1917. In his time, he was considered the greatest sculptor since Michelangelo. His style was both classic and romantic. Rodin followed nature closely and presented it exactly as he saw it. He led the way in modern sculpture. He never was awarded any national honors, which was probably because he lived during the years that his country was at war with Germany. In 1967, during the 50th anniversary of Rodin’s death, he was finally awarded with the public tribute to Preiss.
A cast of The Thinker was placed next to his tomb in Meudon, Île-de-France.
Auguste Moreau (1822-1901) was a French student of Mathurin Moreau and regularly exhibited in the Salons. Hippolyte Moreau (1832-1917) was a student of Jouffroy. He exhibited at the salon in 1863 winning a third prize medal in 1877 and a bronze medal at the 1900 exhibition. He specialized in genre figures. Cyrus Edwin Dallin (1861-1944) was born in Utah. Dallin was student of Truman Bartlett in Boston, Massachusetts and Chapu and Dampt in Paris. His first clay models as a boy were of animals roaming the Utah wilderness. He exhibited in the U.S. and France, winning many gold medals at the expositions. Strictly speaking this sculpture modeled the plight of the American Indian, but in doing so drew attention to the close relationship of the Native American to animals, both wild and domestic. Jules Moigniez (1835-1894) was of the French Nationality. From 1859 to 1892 he displayed 30 animal groups in the Salon where he made his debut. Most of his sculptures were of game birds and hunting dogs. Moigniez committed suicide after a long illness. After Moigniez’s death A. GEORGE cast his bronzes. Most of them appeared at the 1862 Exposition in London, where the artist won a medal. Isidore Jules Bonheur (1827-1901) One of a well know family of painters, he studied painting, moving on to sculpture in 1848. He exhibited until 1899, winning the coveted Gold Medal at the Universal Exhibition in Paris. Somewhat overshadowed by his older sister Rosa, Isidore nevertheless was highly accomplished. He completed a memorial statue to his sister in Fontainloleau during the last two years of his life. Bonheur’s studies ranged from farm animals to bears and tigers, to equestrian groups in a very natural and realistic quality. He was inspired possibly by his many visits to the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. Antoine Louis Barye (1796-1875) was born in Paris on September 24, 1796, as the son of a goldsmith he worked as an apprentice to a mental engraver until he was drafted into the military in 1812. Following the war he studied with classical sculptor Bosio. From 1818 to 1823 he attended the Ecole des Beauz Arts in Paris, winning a second prize in 1819. In 1832 he established his own studio. In 1848 he became director of a plaster casting establishment in Louvre and 1854 he was master of zoological drawings in the Musee`d Histore Naturelle where on of his pupils was Rodin. Barye was the classic case of the artist’s struggle for recognition: his talent was too advance to be appreciated by most until the late 1830’s. He was the greatest animal sculptor of all time and is the father of the animalier school. Yevgeni Alexandrovich Lanceray was a Russian artist who was born in 1848 and died in 1886 in St. Petersburg. A major Russian sculptor who’s work centered upon horses and their relationship with man as his working animals. He produced a wide range of works during his comparatively short career. Some of his more ambitious works of groups of five or seven horses or racing troikas, he always managed to convey a sense of realism in a traditional manner. All his carts were superbly executed with infinite attention to detail of faces and clothing. The signature is normally in Cyrillic. Many of this sculptor’s models have been recast during the last twenty years. Louis Justin Icart was born September 12, 1888 in France. His second wife, Fanny, as well as the city of Paris, which was the uncontested international center of beauty and art, were his inspirations for much of his work. During his forty year artistic career Icart delighted lovers of Art Deco, a fashion directed almost exclusively towards women on both sides of the Atlantic. Art Deco was a period of perfection of workmanship and this factor in Icart’s work related him to the period. Today these witty, joyful, and often poignant images of beautiful women of France have found a new generation of admirers. Demetre H. Chiparus was born in Romania and then traveled to Paris before World War I to become more involved with his artwork. He Exhibited at the Salon in 1914. He produced most of his renowned works between 1914 and 1933. His later works in the 1920’s were influenced by his interest in Egypt, after the excavation of the Pharaoh Tutankhmen’s Tomb. Some of his most exciting works are dancers taken from the Russian Ballet, French theatre and early motion pictures. Johann Philipp Ferinand Preiss was born February 13, 1882 and died from a brain tumor in 1943. He studied in Paris and worked with Professor Poertyle in Berlin. Preiss worked largely with ivory and bronze with magnificent results. It has been established that Preiss designed and worked on all his models and had many sculptors work for him. Though he had sculptors work for him, he did assemble most all of his pieces. Claire Jeanne Roberte Colinet was born in Brussels where she was a student of Jeff Lambeaux. Like many artist, she moved to Paris where she was elected to the Societ`e des Artistes Francais. In 1914, she won an honorable mention at the Salon des Independants from 1937 to 1940. She had a powerful sense of space with limbs and hands arranged in strange balletic poses. Luien Charles Eouard Alloit was born in Paris on November 16, 1877. He was a pupil of Barrias and Coutan and exhibited at the Salon from 1905 to 1939. In 1920, he was awarded a gold medal for sculpture. Alloit is renowned for his art deco style. Pierre Le Faguays was prolific and versatile avant-garde French sculptor whose works greatly influenced the styles of the 1920’s and early 1930’s. His many male figures were super-powerful (a blend of primitive and futuristic man) and often brutal to the extreme. Yet, his dancing girls are delicate creatures and lovely, sensitive faces (in bronze and tinted ivory) equal to those of the better know specialist-Chiparus, Preiss and Lorenzl. Add to these a host of exciting child, biblical and sporting subjects. Juan Clara was born in Olot, Spain in 1875. He exhibited at he Paris Salons. He obtained an honorable mention in 1903. He also exhibited at the Ecole des Beaux-arts in Paris. Emmanuel Villanis was an Italian born sculptor and one of the most prolific sculptors of the late Victorian, early Noveau periods. His works are most exclusively female subjects. The artistic scrolling of the subjects name below her face easily recognizes his pieces. Also readily identifiable as Villanis are the perfect, ideally proportioned features of his women’s faces he used a deep cut for the eyes – a technique that was in sharp contrast to other sculptors of the time who tried to reproduce the natural eyeball. He received an honorable mention at the exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889. Etienne Maurice Falconet was born in Paris on December 1,1716 and died January 24, 1791. In 1757, falconet was appointed director of sculpture at the Seures Porcelain Manufacture. He produced approximately 30 major sculptures, but many were lost due to revolutionary vandalism. Many of his pieces were continuously reproduced in every medium, often even adapted to clocks and furniture. In 1766, Catherine the Great called him to St. Petersburg for his last and greatest commission. He was considered Frances most versatile representative of the 18th century. Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828) born in France. Famous works include Voltaire in 1781 which is in Albert Museum in London. Influenced many sculptors to use realism in facial expressions. Claude Michel Also known as Clodion (1738-1814) French sculptor specialized in small, lively sculptures that combined the sensuous fantasies of the Rococo with lightened echoes of Bernini's dynamic Baroque figures. He lived and worked in Rome for some years after discovering the charms of the city during his tenure as the recipient of the cherished Prix de Rome. Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) Although he was an architect, a sculptor, a painter, a poet, and an engineer, he thought of himself first as a sculptor because he thought that it is much more superior than being a painter. He thought the sculptor shares in something like the devine power to "make man." Emile Louis Picault (1840 -1909) Picault studied under Royer and exhibited medallions and statuettes at the Paris Salon from 1863 to 1909. The work of this sculptor included allegories, warriors, figure exalting patriotic virtue (often accompanied by Latin or French mottoes), heroes, and some historic or mythological person- ages. 
Bill Kilpatrick an exceptionally skilled sculptor, is a 25 year resident of Glendale, California.His work carries a deep immediate impact. His style is said to be “timeless” not pinned to a particular era, stepping beyond cultural fads such as occurred with the art of the 20’s, the 60’s or 80’s. A telling example of this is a life-size bronze rendering of his pregnant wife, a recently developed masterpiece. The metal and wax workers of the busy bronze foundry who work day in and day out with every genre of bronze art repeatedly remarked to their coworkers this piece “has it” meaning that very special intangible that can only be expressed by a truly masterful artist. It presents the magical beauty of pregnancy as seen through the artist’s eyes of his wife, an emotion and an attraction felt by anyone who comes through the gallery to view it. Before he commences with the time-consuming and tedious actions of sculpting a work of art in clay he draws many sketches of possible pieces, goes around town and shows friends and strangers the sketches, watching their slightest reactions to capture their feelings about it. When asked why he does this he said “It guides my creative juices. I know a great deal about the emotions of the beholders before I ever lay my hands on the clay.” Once someone asked the artist if he “sees the completed piece” when he’s midway in the sculpting process. He remarked “I sculpt pieces first in my mind, in the air, in my own world. I’ll create a piece, destroy it or change any part of it. I’ll look at it as many times as I want and from any angle until I know I understand it. I do this while working or while resting. At times I knowingly re-sculpt or refine a piece while I’m sleeping. Then I’ll wake up and later that day, perhaps later that week, sit down and put into the clay the exact vision I created while my body slept. I used to do things like that as a boy. After I saw a movie I would change any part of the script I didn’t like and I’d watch that part of the movie again in my own world and it would run like the revised script. I guess that’s why artists can be so influential in modeling new cultures and in essence help sculpt the direction of civilization. The artist’s imagination triggers the imagination of others.” He works in clay and then in Bronze creating both abstract pieces and figures such as “Stephanie” the pregnant life-size piece. I wanted to know a bit about his personal life. He told me; “I have been surrounded by women all my life… three sisters, my wife, her mother and now my two little girls. Things are rather perfect for me. Some artists have such a troubled life. And my heart goes out to them. My life is not troubled at all. I have come to know some artists that are pretty confused. But to be honest, I’m not.” When you talk with him you don’t miss the air of complete casual certainty. It’s not overconfidence, nor overbearing, but it’s unmistakable. This quality of his personality is visible in every piece. In the end an artist can be known by their art. Kilpatrick’s work is truly remarkable. Max Turner (1930?- )Contemporary artist from California that produces Children and Animal sculptures. His children statues have become very famous all over the world. |
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