Wyoming artist GERALD ANTHONY SHIPPEN has exhibited his art at The Brinton Museum since 1983. Shippen’s monumental bronze sculpture, “Sentinel of the Plains,” greets visitors to the entrance of the Museum’s Forrest E. Mars, Jr. Building. Other Shippen sculptures, including “Wild Turkeys” and “Birds of a Feather,” can be seen on the Brinton grounds and in the Museum’s permanent collection. A Brinton Museum commissioned sculpture of a young colt, “Brinton’s Pride,” represented Wyoming in the United States Art in Embassies Program in the United Arab Emirates.

In addition to his Brinton sculptures, Shippen has been commissioned to create monumental bronze sculptures for locations across the country. Recent awards include selection of Shippen’s book, From Bones to Bronze, as a 2021 High Plains Book Award finalist and receipt of the 2022 Wyoming Capitol Art Exhibit Governor’s Choice Award for his painted bronze sculpture, “Indian’s Pony.” From Bones to Bronze is soon to become the subject of a documentary film produced by New York filmmaker, Wheelhouse Creative.

Shippen lives and works in Cody, Wyoming at his Buffalo Jump Studio.

For the 2024 101 show I selected three works: “Tale of the Ledger Artist”, “The Buffalo Lizard and the Turquoise Moon” and “Majestic Moose of the Big Horns”. Tale of the Ledger Artist celebrates creativity among Native Americans. It reflects upon a time when Native people through the use of ledger paper discarded by the US Government illustrated important tribal traditions, spiritual practices along with important events, by utilizing paper from discarded ledger books supplied by the US Government. The Buffalo Lizard and the Turquoise Moon bolo tie depicts a fictitious creature purely of my own invention clinging from a circular object made from turquoise stone. “Majestic Moose of the Big Horns” depicts a young bull trotting through a willow bottom; a common occurrence in the Big Horn Mountains.

Artists Statement
Gerald Shippen