DAVE MCGARY (American, b. 1958). Bear Tracks, 1994. Bronze with patina and paint. 33-1/2 x 21 x 17 inches (85.1 x 53.3 x...

Description

DAVE MCGARY (American, b. 1958)
Bear Tracks, 1994
Bronze with patina and paint
33-1/2 x 21 x 17 inches (85.1 x 53.3 x 43.2 cm)
Ed. 49/50
Signed, dated, and numbered on base: Dave McGary 1994 49/50

One of the premiere contemporary artists of the American West, Wyoming native Dave McGary has brought to life the history of the Plains Indians through his realistic and humanistic painted bronze sculptures. His career began at age sixteen when he won a scholarship to travel to Italy and study anatomy and the Renaissance technique of lost-wax casting with the American sculptor Harry Jackson. During the 1980s, while working at a Santa Fe foundry, McGary befriended several students at the Institute of American Indian Arts, who invited him to a Sun Dance ceremony on a Lakota Sioux reservation. This indelible experience marked the first of many visits to the reservation, where, adopted by the Red Elk family, he absorbed the stories of the Lakota and gained the names "Big Red Ears" and "Big Eagle" for his gifts of listening and sharing knowledge through his art.

It is both McGary's "insider's" understanding of Native American culture and his exacting craftsmanship - modeling the human form from a skeletal armature, casting multiple pieces for each sculpture, shaping historically accurate costumes and accessories, and applying paints and patinas to accentuate textures -- that have distinguished him as a sculptor and secured his international acclaim. McGary has received numerous awards and commissions: during the 1990s, he executed a portrait of the founder of Santa Fe; participated in a one-man show at the Russell Senate Rotunda in Washington, D.C.; exhibited by selection at the United Nations' "Art and the Earth" program; and completed a monumental sculpture of eight running horses for the Hubbard Museum of the American West in Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico. More recent notable works include three portraits of the legendary Shoshone warrior and peacemaker Chief Washakie (installed in the U.S. Capitol; Wyoming State Capitol; and Arapaho Complex, Fort Washakie) and Emergence of the Chief, depicting a Mohawk clan mother instructing a new chief on his future duties (Concordia University, Montreal). McGary's sculptures are featured in numerous other permanent collections, such as those of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis; Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody; Autry National Center, Los Angeles; and Musée McCord, Montreal.


LITERATURE:
M. Duty, Dave McGary: American Realism in Bronze, Ruidoso, 1997, p. 130.

During the 1830s, artists Karl Bodmer and George Catlin first ventured into the Northern Plains to document Native American life in situ. One of their subjects was the Mandan chief Four Bears, renowned for his bravery and his ceremonial dress, in particular his ermine headdress with split buffalo horns. Like these early western artists, McGary accentuates Four Bears's elaborate costuming - the same horned headdress as well as his formidable buffalo cape painted with battle exploits - yet he captures in the chief's facial features a far more complex persona than the nineteenth-century noble savage stereotype. Indeed, it is McGary's unique perspective - viewing Native American life as a historian and a participant in tribal ceremonies -- that allows him to "make real" figures from the past.

A life-size version of Bear Tracks stands at the Autry National Center.

More information about DAVE MCGARY. See also: McGary, Dave, Dave McGary Artist.

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