Now open at the Eiteljorg Museum is Quest for the West Artist of Distinction: Tim Cherry, which celebrates last year’s award-winning artist from the Quest for the West. The exhibition, which coincides with the Quest for the West, features Cherry’s iconic, personality-laden wildlife sculptures.
Cherry’s career began like many wildlife sculptors—taxidermy lessons and countless hours observing nature from childhood—before taking a dramatic turn. “When I started sculpture, it was very much detail, and then I discovered my love for Art Nouveau and everything changed,” the artist says. “I fell in love with all those beautiful flowing lines and shapes. It’s pure design and that’s my favorite thing about what I do, organizing all these shapes and lines and curves.”
Beaver Retriever, bronze, 35 x 15 x 9 in.
Art Nouveau took Europe and the United States by storm at the turn of the 20th century. Long, flowing lines. Sinuous. Organic. The style was applied to architecture, jewelry, posters and décor.
Cherry has become so taken by form, line and shape he oftentimes has designs in need of an animal instead of animals in need of designing. “I attack my designs backwards. I’ll come up with a combination of shapes and lines I like and then find subject matter that’ll fit it,” Cherry explains. “I find a shape or a line that I like and think, ‘An otter would fit that nicely,’ or a fish or a rabbit.”
Fish Dish, bronze, 33 x 6 x 12 in.
Rabbits are one of Cherry’s signatures. Bulbous haunches. Humped bellies and arched backs. Oversized feet and ears. Cherry’s rabbit sculptures recall the luxurious Cord automobiles of the late 1920s and 1930s with their swooping fenders.
“Rabbit subject matter, with my exaggerated lines and round forms, that subject really falls nicely,” Cherry says.
Rabbits are among the many animals he continues observing daily from his front porch, bike rides, walks and fishing breaks at his lakeside home near Branson, Missouri. It’s a softer environment than the rugged mountains and back country of the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and British Columbia where he held guiding jobs as a teenager and young man. Cherry was born in Calgary. That’s where he got his 10,000 hours observing wildlife.
Along with Art Nouveau, Cherry infuses his sculpture with a touch of whimsy.
Puma Poise, bronze, 66 x 28 x 12 in.
“Even though my work is more stylized, a little more contemporary, I still have to be careful of bringing that characteristic and life of that animal forward, and I want to look at and bring my work to the lighter side of life,” he says. “Animals all have personalities like people and animals make me smile.”
This will be Cherry’s 20th year showing at the Eiteljorg Museum’s Quest for the West. Over that time, he has amassed a strong local fan base. Every one of the 15 sculptures he’s presenting, from tabletop-size pieces to large garden sculptures, are loans from private collectors in Indianapolis.
His supporters there began with what Cherry described as one “guardian angel collector.”
Flat Jack, bronze, 12 x 9½ x 3 in.
“I want [this show] to be a celebration of not only what I do, but of the very kind collectors who have supported me over the years,” he says. “This is my way of being able to acknowledge them and say thank you.” —
Quest for the West Artist of Distinction: Tim Cherry
Through September 27, 2026
Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art
500 W. Washington Street, Indianapolis, IN 46204
(317) 636-9378, www.eiteljorg.org
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