update 5/20/22: The bust and plaques have been cast in bronze and shipped to Little Rock. We will update with photos once the city has installed the memorial. 

10/15/21: National Sculptors' Guild Fellow Jane DeDecker has been selected to sculpt Daisy Bates for placement in the City of Little Rock, Arkansas. The honor to portray such an important figure is a true highlight. 

The life-sized bronze bust will be accompanied by a wall of bronze plaques featuring quotations by the great Civil Rights Activist.

​The public display of her image and words will serve well to inspire next generations to take her lead to end racial injustice.

​"I have been truly inspired and deeply moved by the strength and dedication of Daisy Lee Gatson Bates. She turned tragedy into her life's work in fighting against prejudice, segregation, and inequality. Daisy Lee Gatson Bates was a formidable woman who would not stand down." - Jane DeDecker, NSG

The commemorative placement will be completed in 2022. Updates will be posted here.

​Daisy Lee Gatson Bates
Mentor to the Little Rock Nine
Advocate for Equality

Community by Clay Enoch and the National Sculptor's Guild was placed in Little Rock, AR December 2019.

Community creates a welcoming space and impression which reflects my experiences here.

Many stages and aspects of life are represented in "Community"; baby and family, sports and nutrition,
reaching out and education; all lending to portraying playfulness, warmth, hospitality, and love. These are the building blocks for a thriving community and are all present in Little Rock.

NSG Public Art Placement #512

"Lion Pride" by Darrell Davis and the National Sculptors' Guild  is installed at the roundabout as you enter the Little Rock Zoo. NSG Director John Kinkade made multiple trips to Little Rock to pick out the natural stone that is strategically placed to create the levels needed to match the artist's initial composition. The cast aluminum really sets off against the warm colors in the stone. And the strong glance of the lions is intense. We love how it turned out and hope you can make a trip to see in person. #PublicArt NSG-505

Update 11/1/18: ​Yes, that’s a lioness in the gallery!
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We have National Sculptors' Guild Fellow Darrell Davis’ monumental sculpture here temporarily as we wait for the site and the other two pieces to be cast. We didn’t have a stone to anchor her on in the NSG sculpture garden, so, here she is visiting Columbine Gallery

Part of our public art projects, Davis’ “Lion Pride” will be installed in the roundabout as you enter the Little Rock Zoo soon. We love this first lion. She’s a big beauty!

Update 10/5/18: The first lioness is in metal... she's looking great!

Update 1/15/18: Progress image of the enlargement of Darrell Davis' life-size Lion Pride

Here is a video we just ran across by a student digesting and discussing NSG Fellow Jane DeDecker’s Harriet Tubman sculpture that we placed inLittle Rock in 2004, part of a series of sculptures that lead to the Clinton Presidential Center see more about our installation 
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Our sculpture placements continue to move and educate people. #PublicArt #FeedYourCreativeSpirit

April 24, 2018 Update: It's happening now.... NSG's Stephen Shachtman's "Arkansas A" is being installed at it’s new home by the Southwest Community Center in Little Rock, Arkansas.
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Thanks to the City of Little Rock for the installation help, and Sculpture at the River Market for the placement.

At the heart of the three forms is a sphere representing the community. The #Steel/#Bronze portion of the “A” represents #Arkansas while the pieces of the #sandstone sphere make up its people. 

April 21, 2018 Update: NSG's Stephen Shachtman’s #ArkansasA is loaded up and heading to it’s new home in Little Rock, Arkansas. Stay tuned for pics of the installation next week.

10/25/17 Update: Fabrication is nearing completion. We will be heading to Little Rock for installation soon.

09/22/2017 UPDATE: Honored to have seven of the Little Rock Nine at the Unveiling and Dedication of United by Clay Enoch and the National Sculptors' Guild at Central High School, Little Rock, AR.

09/21/2017 UPDATE: We are in Little Rock for the installation of United by Clay Enoch and the National Sculptors' Guild The 10-foot bronze commemorates the 60th Anniversary of the integration of Central High.

Clay states about the sculpture... “I wanted to try to shift the focus from the historical to the contemporary. There has been so much progress made. I wanted to create something that showed the strides that have been made — something hopeful and uplifting.” 

The design features allegorical figures with raised arms working to interlock their respective rings in the effort to be "UNITED". Incomplete rings indicate that there is still progress to be made. A secondary narrative built on the surface of each figure demonstrates that both sides have a foundation of ideals spanning generations that must be transformed into building blocks toward something greater

The dedication for this important monument is Friday September 22nd at Central High School where additional commemorations are happening this month to recognize the 60th anniversary of the integration of Central High. click for more info

09/15/17 UPDATE: United by Clay Enoch and the National Sculptors' Guild was loaded onto the truck this morning and is on its way to Little Rock. The 10-foot bronze will be installed next week. The dedication for this important monument is Friday September 22nd at Central High School.

Art celebrates post-integration progress
Story published monday in LR demgazette...... By Jeannie Roberts Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
This article was published April 25, 2016 at 5:45 a.m.

PHOTO BY ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE / MITCHELL PE MASILUN

Little Rock contest’s winner to sculpt piece marking 60 years since Central High crisis
Shifting the focus from the historical scar on Little Rock to the strides that have been made in the nearly 60 years since Central High School was integrated was the goal of this year’s winner of the 2016 Sculpture at the River Market competition.
National Sculptors' Guild fellow Clay Enoch of Colorado Springs, Colo., was named Sunday as the recipient of a public art commission for his proposed piece called United. The sculpture, which will be 10 feet, 2 inches tall and 6 feet wide, will be installed in 2017 on the grounds of Central High School to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the desegregation crisis. The state gained national attention when on Sept. 4, 1957, nine black students attempted to enter the high school but were turned away by the Arkansas National Guard and an angry mob. On Sept. 25, 1957, U.S. Army troops, under orders from President Dwight Eisenhower, escorted the “Little Rock Nine” through the mobs and into the high school, officially ending segregation for the state. Enoch’s piece, which he will compose from silicon bronze and structural stainless steel, depicts two figures working together to connect two circles. “The thing that struck me is the history is kind of ugly,” Enoch said. “I wanted to try to shift the focus from the historical to the contemporary. There has just been so much progress made. I wanted to create something that showed the strides that have been made — something hopeful and uplifting.” 

Enoch and two other finalists — Kathleen Caricof and Denny Haskew, both of Colorado — were selected from 28 submissions. “This is cliche, but you’d like to be able to give all three of them the commission to do all three pieces because they were all three superb in every way,” said Dean Kumpuris, the founder of Sculpture at the River Market and a member of the Little Rock Board of Directors. Little Rock Central Principal Nancy Rousseau said she was thrilled about the commissioned piece and is eager to have it installed. “There were so many good pieces,” she said. “They’re all timeless. All had great concepts.”
Joseph Wright, a Central High senior, said the many sculptures to commemorate the desegregation crisis were inspiring to him not only as a black student at the school, but also as an aspiring artist. “The name United and the sculpture is very fitting,” Wright said. “I’ve taken an art class at Central every year. Sculpting is a passion of mine.”

Artist Longhua Xu of Hot Springs said the subject of the competition was especially meaningful to him as a 1989 immigrant from Shanghai. His piece Freedom commemorates the Central High School integration with a clay, three-sided sculpture of three representative students. One is a girl with a book held in the air, balanced on the tips of her fingers like a bird to illustrate the heights to which an education can take her. Another is a black male student with a backpack and the word “Explore” chiseled behind him. The third is a female Chinese student with a pen and notebook in her hand with the word “Express” embossed behind her. The last is representative of Xu’s daughter, Ann Xu, a 2010 graduate of the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts in Hot Springs whom Gov. Asa Hutchinson appointed to the school’s Board of Visitors last year. “As an Asian-American, I had to teach her that she needs to speak up, to have her voice heard,” Longhua Xu said. “She wanted to be class president but said that you had to be popular, smart and white to get the spot. I told her to speak up. She became student body president. Now she’s in medical school at Baylor.”

More than 800 sculptures from 48 juried artists from around the nation were displayed at the RiverMarket pavilions during the two-day show. It was the ninth show organized by the Sculpture at the River Market committee, which commissions artwork and then donates it to the city to be placed in various locations around Little Rock. Last year’s winner, Michael Warrick’s Mockingbird Tree, was installed last week at the northwest corner of Chenal Parkway and Chenal Valley Drive.

Update 8/28/2018: Our bronze Hippo #RoundBottomusHippopotamus by NSG Fellow Tim Cherry has found its new home in Riverfront Park. Thanks Sculpture at the River Market and the City of Little Rock, AR #PublicArt #Bronze #Sculpture #Hippo #Bench #RiverfrontPark#LIttleRock #Art This is the National Sculptors' Guild's 499th monumental Public Art Placement!

Update 08/23/2018: Our Hippo friend Roundbottomus Hippopotamus #bronze by Tim Cherry took a snooze under #BlueNorth in the National Sculptors' Guild #sculpturegarden after a busy summer greeting people and enjoying the great amenities at Embassy Suites by Hilton Loveland Hotel Conference Center & Spa. She’s now ready for a drive to her new home in #LittleRock thanks to Sculpture at the River Market
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You can see we are delivering some Little (big) Rocks to Little Rock too and our #zen tea master #Sculpture Afternoon Sun by Dee Clements is joining them. Plus a few paintings. Thanks for loving Art Little Rock, Arkansas!
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#RoadTrip #SculptureDelivery #MonumentalSculpture #PublicArt#FeedYourCreativeSpirit #LiveWithArt #NSG #Installation #HippoLove #TimCherry

Update 12/07/2017: Tim Cherry has finished Roundbottomus Hippopotamus in a beautiful Pat Kipper patina. The first in the edition was commissioned through the National Sculptors' Guild for the City of Little Rock, Arkansas and will be installed in the spring once the site is ready. The sculpture is designed to be played on and around, placed directly on the ground, bands of different colors of concrete will surround the bronze to give the sense of rings of water. The donor has named her "Annaba" after the modern city built over the ruins of Hippo Regius in Algeria, Africa where their father spent time in the 1940s.
Want one of your own? click here

Update 07/11/2017: Tim Cherry has been sculpting the Hippo that will head to Little Rock. The finished clay is shown here.

7/26/2016   #WIP coming soon.... The National Sculptors' Guild is working on a fun placement with Tim Cherry. A Hippo Bench for Little Rock, AR. The bronze sculpture will depict a hippo appearing to be wading in water - in a shape and size that invites interaction - seating and playing on/around. Measuring approximately 6x3ft.

Stay tuned for images as we progress.

The Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden is expanding to showcase additional artwork acquired through proceeds from the Sculpture at the River Market Exhibit. Quickly outgrown, the additional space will allow for more than a dozen sculpture placements. To start, NSG has placed Jane DeDecker's Shortcuts, Lil' Sis; Leo Osborne's Of Grace, a Dan Ostermiller bear - Le Grand Pere; and Big Bill by Tim Cotterill (the Frogman)
Click here to see more of the garden and artwork
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The sculpture garden features natural terraces and walkways designed by City of Little Rock's Leland Couch, Mark Webre & National Sculptors' Guild's John Kinkade. The design creates a more intimate space to view smaller works within the Riverfront Park and is ideal for hosting receptions, as well as, allowing visitors to enjoy the sculptures in solitude. The sculpture garden is located northeast of The Marriott in Riverfront Park and is just one stop of many public art placements along the Arkansas river to enjoy artist's sculptures from across the nation. ‪#‎SculptureGarden‬ ‪#‎ArkansasArt‬ ‪#‎RiverfrontPark

When Dean Kumpuris asked John Kinkade and the National Sculptors' Guild to establish an outdoor sculpture show for Little Rock ten years ago; we didn't anticipate how much fun we'd have in the process. For a weekend every year downtown Little Rock has become home for the Guild, we've found the people embrace us as much as they do the Arts, and show this appreciation in a huge way at Sculpture at the River Market. So much so, that we have artists that don't typically do the show circuit make an exception for this top notch show. John continues to serve as the show's consultant.

Since our first Little Rock placements in 2004 for the pedestrian entry to the Clinton Center, the Guild has placed over 30 monuments and numerous smaller works with the City of Little Rock. These public art placements are made possible with private funds and proceeds from the Sculpture at the River Market show. The enthusiasm the city has for the Arts is palpable and we hope it spreads to other communities. ​

We have 4 of the 7 finalists in this year's public art competition for the city. Vote for your favorite at the preview party April 21st..., click here to purchase tickets. Or visit the River Market Saturday and Sunday to see whose proposal won. ​