Doug Hyde: Master of Stone and Bronze is the title of an exhibition of the Native American sculptor’s work at the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Wickenburg, Arizona, through March 5.Doug Hyde, left, with Ezra Tucker and Thomas Blackshear II. Courtesy Broadmoor Galleries, Colorado Springs, CO.Of Assiniboine, Nez Perce and Chippewa heritage, he studied with the renowned Apache sculptor, Allan Houser at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In addition to working in the studio, the two artists would have breakfast together  three times a week. “Houser created a good work ethic,” Hyde explains, “working 9 to 5 just like in a ‘real’ job. That affected me. I hardly ever work in the evening. I start early in the day and work until 4 or 5. He taught us the old way, using hand tools. He liked the idea of working with the shape of the stone, working the outer surface and creating a form so the eye would flow through the whole piece.

Intertribal Greeting (detail), 1999, bronze. Courtesy Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ.

“When I returned from Vietnam and worked in a friend’s tombstone factory in Colorado, I got into modern tools like saws and grinders. I returned to teach at IAIA and brought that technology into my classes, using air compressors, air hammers and sandblasters. I taught the students to work with the equipment and told them that if they were going to make a living at sculpture, they needed to carve things faster to meet the market while not ruining the quality.”

Hyde listens to the stone before he begins and to the figures themselves as they emerge from the stone. He may have 50 stones around his studio that can be there for many years before they speak to him. One piece with vibrant colors in a reddish brown sat around for 20 years. “I couldn’t figure out what to do with it until one day I saw this red-tailed hawk.”Arizona Wildlife, bronze, 4 x 18”People of the Red Tail Hawk is now available in a bronze edition of 35. When asked about the difference in working with clay for casting and carving stone, he replied that the bronze editions are inspired by his stone carvings, if he decides they will work in bronze. Not only does he not model in clay, he seldom uses drawings—preferring to be inspired by the stone.

Doll Talk was carved in pink Portugese marble and is now in the collection of the Autry National Center in Los Angeles. The bronze is available in an edition of 12. It features two girls and their dolls, one, a Hopi girl, has her hair in the squash blossom whorls worn by unmarried women, and the other, a Nez Perce girl with her hair in braids. The Hopi girl holds a Katsina doll and the Nez Perce holds a doll in a cradleboard.People of the Red Tail Hawk, bronze, ed. 18 of 35, 10 x 27 x 15”. Courtesy Broadmoor Galleries, Colorado Spring, CO.

Wild Child, marble, 12 x 18 x 10½”. Courtesy Nedra Matteucci Galleries, Santa Fe, NM.

“I get a rough piece of stone and use my hammer to tap it,” he explains. “What I’m looking for is a metallic sound that almost rings. That means there are no flaws. If I get a dull sound, that indicates a flaw in the stone. I put water on it, which dries, except where there is a crack. I cut off that piece and then work with the rest.

He used to travel the country visiting quarries and selecting stones. “When I go to a quarry I see a certain shape and select it. One time, below the quarry, I saw a stone that had rolled down the hill into a stream that had eroded it into a real soft shape that looked like a buffalo. I asked them to pull it out and later carved a buffalo calf. Today, most of the quarries know me and will call to tell me ‘we have this stone you’d love.’ I might not get to it for 10 or 15 years, though, because when I work on a piece, I get so involved that I tune out everything else.Salmon, bronze, ed. of 15, 5 x 16 x 12”. Courtesy the artist.

“I do a lot of animals. I’ll think ‘this stone has been here a long time and all it wants to do is fly’ so I’ll have an idea for birds. Sometimes it’s a fish, swimming, not sinking like a rock. It’s a combination of me and the rock working together. If there are streaks of color like in alabaster, I’ll use the color along with the natural shape.”

Often, Hyde’s sculptures are the prized pieces in collections featured in this magazine. He is also known for his monumental public sculptures. One of his clients was the Cache Creek Casino Resort’s Yocha Dehe Golf Club in Northern California, owned by the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation.Doll Talk, bronze, ed. of 12, 19 x 29 x 16¾”. Courtesy Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery, Tucson, AZ.

“I was contacted by a tribal leader,” he relates. “On the site he showed me the little valley where they used to catch fish. Just then some deer came running by. We walked around and I told him that I visualized a father and son fishing. The people made traps out of willow and would have to make new ones every day. I carved a life-size dad making a trap and his son holding a salmon.

“There is a 9-foot limestone sculpture at the entrance featuring a bear sow and her cub. The mother is looking for grubs under a log and the cub is playing like a little kid, gathering pine cones. Next to him a was nest. He’s about to get a big surprise. I carved the wasp nest into the stone so it’s in shadow and changes during the day.”Corn Mother, alabaster, 34 x 9 x 9”. Courtesy the artist.Hyde studied with a master and has become one on his own. In 2018 he received the Governor’s Award presented to him by Arizona Citizens for the Arts in partnership with the office of the Arizona Governor. In addition to Master of Stone and Bronze, the Desert Caballeros Western Museum is also honoring Hyde (as well as painter Joni Falk) during the heARTof the West event on January 21. —

heART of the West
January 21, 2023, 6 p.m.

Doug Hyde: Master of Stone and Bronze
December 17, 2022-March 5, 2023
Desert Caballeros Western Museum, 21 N. Frontier Street, Wickenburg, AZ 85390
(928) 684-2272, www.westernmuseum.org 

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