Famous sculptor re-emerges from obscurity

After Umatilla County Sheriff Tilman Taylor was killed during a jailbreak in 1920 in Pendleton, the much-loved lawman was immortalized with a statue by renowned sculptor Alexander Phimister Proctor, a resident of Pendleton from 1914-1916 whose love for the American West was legendary. More than 50 years later, Proctor’s daughters returned to Pendleton during the 1973 Pendleton Round-Up and talked to the East Oregonian about their famous father, whose name had since faded from the public eye despite a vast body of work in public spaces across the United States.

A. Phimister Proctor works on details of the Til Taylor statue in his studio in Belgium in 1927 (EO file photo).

Hester Proctor and Nona Church were in Pendleton to see the Round-Up and visit with Hester’s 1915 classmate, Mrs. H.S. McKenzie. Miss Proctor remembered her father’s fascination with horses and his love for the Round-Up, where he met characters such as Jackson Sundown, whose 1916 championship saddle bronc ride was funded by her father when Proctor put up Sundown’s entry fee. Proctor also spent a summer with Sundown and his family in Cul de Sac, Idaho, taking photos that would serve as models for another of his famous sculptures, “The Warrior.”

Some of Proctor’s other work can also be seen in Oregon. “Pioneer Mother,” whose model was Pendleton’s Elvira Brown Matheny, and “Pioneer Father” are both at the University of Oregon in Eugene, and the UO Art Museum contains “Indian Maid and Fawn,” a copy of which is in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens in New York City. A statue of Proctor’s favorite hunting buddy, Teddy Roosevelt, stands in Portland.

Other famous statues include plunging mustangs in front of the University of Texas Memorial Museum in Austin; Gen Robert E. Lee in Dallas; “Pioneer Mother Group” in Kansas City, Mo.; and “On the War Trail” and “Bronco Busters” in Denver. Two of his works grace the nation’s capitol: four 9-foot-high by 18-foot bronze bison, the famed Q Street Buffalo, and two buffalo heads in bas-relief on a fireplace mantle in the White House.

Proctor lived to be 89 years old, and passed away in 1950. As famous as he was during his lifetime, his name slipped into obscurity after his death. A second interview in September 1973 with Kalispell, Mont., art dealer Bernie Kushner and his wife Palma included a handful of the hundreds of photographs taken and collected by Proctor during his time as an artist. The Kushners were traveling through the United States, visiting the sites of Proctor’s most famous sculptures to refresh memories of the sculptor. Kushner had also helped the Proctor family gather many of his original working models from across the country, from which bronze castings were made and sold.

“We want his reputation revived. He was great,” said Bernie Kushner. “There’s nothing obscure about his work.”

Today, the Alexander Phimister Proctor Museum is located in Hansville, Wash., near Seattle, and in 2005 donated approximately 100 original Proctor artworks to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyo.