John Lopez Bronzes

John Lopez, artist and sculptor, grew up on a horse and cattle ranch west of the Missouri River in South Dakota. The Lopez family has been raising top-notch horses for the past four generations. This family heritage has given John a passion for sculpting horses.

John was commissioned to sculpt a monument for the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame featuring World Champion Calf Roper Paul Tierney on a Lopez bred horse, "Coffee Jeff." Later, the Pro Rodeo commissioned him to sculpt Charmayne James on her famous horse Scamper. Both of these half life-size monuments can be viewed in their sculpture garden that features all of the rodeo events in bronze.

John is also honored to be one of four sculptors on The City of Presidents sculpture project, which plans to place life-size bronzes of all the U.S. presidents on street corners in Historic Downtown Rapid City, South Dakota. John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Jimmy Carter, John F. Kennedy and John, Jr., Calvin Coolidge and Teddy Roosevelt (below) are a few of the presidents John has sculpted so far.

John's favorite time of the year is at the end of September when he is the Artist in Residence at the South Dakota State Game Lodge in beautiful Custer State Park.

Recently, John has been experimenting with a new medium, after building a gate for his Aunt Effie's cemetery. He used some old scrap iron that he found in Uncle Geno’s iron pile to build an angel for the top of the cemetary gate. That angel received such accolades that he started to build more sculptures using old nuts, bolts, chains, spoons and other found objects. These scrap iron sculptures have sent John and his career in an exciting new direction. To date, the scrap iron T-Rex titled "Ironasaraus" is the largest sculpture piece John has done. To view more of John's work, click on any one of the photo galleries above.