Texan Robert Summers created A TEXAS LEGACY in 1986 as monumental sculpture that was placed at the entrance to the Astro Hall (next to the late Astrodome) in Houston. Only 40 of these maquettes were cast, and they very seldom appear on the secondary market.
A resident of Glen Rose, Texas, Robert Summers is an oil painter and sculptor in realist style of contemporary western subjects, especially cattle ranching. He is the creator of numerous public art projects including the world's largest bronze for the Pioneer Plaza at the Dallas Convention Center. It has seventy longhorn steers and three horses and riders on a cattle drive. Completed in the mid 1990s, it took him two and a half years.
As a child in Glen Rose, he took art lessons and was inspired by his father, a local judge and Frederic Remington buff. In his 20s, he worked with the Texas Highway Department and then with General Dynamic Aircraft, while working part time as an artist. Expressing desire to devote full time to his art career, he was supported for one year by a cousin, and by the late 1960s, he was achieving public success. In 1976, he was recognized as the official Texas Bicentennial Artist.
Biography courtesy of AskArt.com
Source: Peggy and Harold Samuels, "Contemporary Western Artists"
