THE BISON

The Bison was sculpted in black granite in 1938 working at the Cresco, PA, summer studio. It is a half life-sized representation of an American Buffalo resting on the ground. In the summer of 1938, Bert Hartman visited Richard Davis at his studio at Cresco in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. C. Bertram Hartman (1882–1960) was an American oil and watercolor painter. His artwork is exhibited at the Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, the Butler Institute of American Art, the Spencer Museum of Art on the campus of the University of Kansas, and the Brooklyn Museum in New York City and in private collections. Hartman sketched RD at work and created a full-sized watercolor of RD carving the Bison.

A friend, Walter Addison, sketched a bison while visiting Davis during the carving. Addison (1914-1982) was a painter, muralist and ink draftsman who is known best as the lead artist for the Bronx Zoo during the 1940s.  He excelled at drawing, painting, and sculpting animals in a clean lyrical art deco style.  His animal art was published widely and acquired by museums and collectors.

The Bison was exhibited widely, first at the Whitney Museum in 1939 then elsewhere. It is now part of the permanent collection at Munson, a museum in Utica, NY, and on display in their garden