Richard Vernon Greeves

A sculptor of various sizes, including monumental bronzes of Native American figures, Richard Greeves was born and grew up in an Italian neighborhood in St. Louis where he lived in his words, a "Huck Finn childhood." At age 15, he met an Indian girl whom he visited on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. He returned home to finish school, but knew the Wind River Reservation had stolen his heart. He later moved there and purchased the local trading post which became his home and studio. With one third of an acre enclosed and 26-foot high ceilings, he has plenty of room to work. He says, "There is a magic, a mysticism for me here that I really can't explain, I just feel it." Greeves mission in sculpture is to tell a story. He has been an invited artist at the prestigious annual Prix de West Show and was a winner of the James Earle Fraser Award for Outstanding Artistic Merit at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in 2000. His monuments to Chief Washakie, Crazy Horse, and Birdwoman reside in the gardens at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. For the courtyard of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, he did a monument of Indian figures 1 and 1/2 times life-size. In 2006 he was honored with a one man exhibition Lewis and Clark Among the Indians at the Autry National Center.