Richard Gihon Elmore, resides in Southern California. He has had a life long passion for fine art. His background in design led him into 30 years of designing and building custom home estates, as well as furnishing them and collecting fine art. As a form of relaxation and a new hobby he has begun to sculpt western art, which has been a favorite for many years.
 
"The American Classic"

Frederic Remington (1861-1909) depicted the life of the cowboy during the 1800ís and 1890ís better perhaps than any other artist of his time. 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. "What success I have had", Remington once told a newspaper reporter, "has been because I have a horsemanís knowledge of a horse. No one can draw equestrian subjects unless he is an equestrian himself."
 
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. " I was impelled to try my hand at sculpture by a mental desire to say something in the round as well as in flat. Sculpture is the most perfect expression of action. You can say it all in clay." 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.
 
James Earl Fraser was born in Winona Minnesota in 1876. In 1880 James and his family moved to the Dakota Territory where he began his love for the west.
 
At age 22, Fraser went to Paris to study under master sculptors. Working with his wife, Laura, they created many great works of art, many of which surmount " The End of the Trail". In 1953 Fraser died. Since his death he is regarded as Americaís foremost Western Sculptor.
 
" The All American Cowboy"

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 ñ horses.
 
The viewer of Russellís 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.

"Masterworks"

Carl Kauba was born in Vienna in 1865 and died in 1922. Although he signed "Carl", Kaubaís 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, Kaubaís 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.
 
Charles Humphries (or Humphriss)1867-1934 was born in England and later settled in New York. He became a member of the National Association of Sculptors and won recognition of his peers. 
He also exhibited at the Academy of Fine Arts and at the Panama-Pacific Exposition where he won several awards. 
 
He saw the Indians as a man of Peace, and not as a warrior. Although the theme of his work was influenced by the western way of life, he lived and exhibited his works in the East.
 
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.
 
Antoine Bofill (20th Century) Spanish. A student of the Academy of Beauz Arts in Barcelona, he exhibited at the Salon of the Societe des Artistes Francais (1901-1920-s) specializing in small figurines and groups.
 
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. 
Meneís father was a skilled metal tuner and was able to teach his son the basicís 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.
 
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 Moigniezís 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. 
 
Bonheurís 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 artistís struggle for recognition: his talent was too advance to be appreciated by most until the late 1830ís. 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 whoís 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 sculptorís models have been recast during the last twenty years.
 
John Willis Good (1845-1879) little is know about this English Sculptor that was highly popular. His work was exhibited at the Royal Academy form 1870-78.
 
He concentrated throughout his short and prolific career in bronze and terra cotta. His bronzes are usually well finished and crisply modeled with a well-defined script signature. The well-known silver-plating firm Elking and Co. cast many of this sculptorís bronzes, especially around the year 1875.
 
"Great Masterworks"

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 Rodinís death, he was finally awarded with the public tribute to Preiss.
 
Art Deco/Art Nouveau

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 Icartís 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 1920ís were influenced by his interest in Egypt, after the excavation of the Pharaoh Tutankhmenís 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.
 
Classic Nudes

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 1920ís and early 1930ís. 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.
 
"Classical"

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 womenís faces he used a deep cut for the eyes ñ 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.
 
"Great Masterworks "

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.