Sculptor to cast famed horse in bronze

By Milo Dailey, Belle Fourche Post & Bee | Monday, June 23, 2008

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It’s not obvious, but part of the artist’s signature on the new statue of the famed bucking horse Tipperary reads “Cowboy to Cowboy.”

T.R. “Tony” Chytka likes putting it that way, and his statue ties together the history and heritage of the area. Chytka, one of America’s best-known cowboy sculptors, is creating a half-size bronze, “Tipperary’s Last Stand,” for Buffalo’s centennial in 2009.

The horse was raised in the Buffalo area, made his name at Camp Crook and became famous at the Roundup in Belle Fourche.

The Tipperary name has always had a big presence in the Buffalo community. There’s the town park, motel, rodeo arena, “and now we’re going to have the statue, ‘Tipperary’s Last Stand,’” Rexene Till said.

Till has been working with the Belle Fourche sculptor for about a year and a half to bring together a program that will cover the costs of a half life-size statue in Buffalo for its 2009 centennial.

Till said she’s known Chytka since they both attended college at Black Hills State University in Spearfish. Her ancestors raised the famed bucking horse near Long Pines, and now she is on the Buffalo Centennial Committee.

Chytka rode bulls and began building a reputation as a cowboy sculptor. After living a while in Spearfish, he ended up at a unique “ranch home” near Belle Fourche, where he has his studio and foundry facilities.

His works are part of Belle Fourche, and Till figured it would be a good idea to have one of his sculptures in Buffalo.

Chytka and Till worked with the town council to make the project happen.

To cover the costs of the big statue, the Belle Fourche artist is creating 100 14-inch miniatures to go on sale at $680 each.

Unlike most sculptors whose work ends up cast in bronze by an outside foundry contractor, Chytka takes the whole process on himself.

He researches his subject, plans the look of a piece, does a basic piece in clay, then goes about turning 2,200-degree molten metal into a statue that freezes the motion of “cowboy life” into bronze.

Everything except the little nameplate on the miniatures is crafted in his foundry — even the wood base. The statues are built in pieces — three for the miniatures — using the “lost wax” process. Wax molds are made, then covered with a thick, plaster-like covering.

When the molds are heated, the wax is “lost” and molten metal is poured in to replace it.

That’s the “fine craftsman” part of Chytka’s work.

The “artist” side begins with the research.

“I went through and looked at pictures,” he said. “I kind of had some background on Tipperary when Yakima came here.”

That’s Chytka’s statue of the bronc buster, famed Hollywood actor, stuntman and stunt director Yakima Canutt.

Canutt was a horseman and rodeo rider before his Hollywood career, and his silent film fame as a movie cowboy was spurred by his trips to Belle Fourche and the challenge of the horse no man could ride.

Chytka said he figures Tip managed to unseat even the best riders because “he would rear on his hind legs like he was going to go over backward.”

Since range cowboys had bad feelings about a horse rolling back on them miles from help, they’d instinctively unstick from the saddle and stirrups.

One of the rules of challenge rides for the horse was that he’d be taken from a snubbed position instead of a chute, and that losing a stirrup meant losing the challenge.

Chytka chuckles: “To get the cowboy part of it, there’s a hat laying at the base of the sculpture. It has a lot of local reflections; I grew up hearing about Tipperary, and he was quite a legend.

“The half life-size will be done at the end of this summer. I’ll start up the clay model and work on it over the course of the winter. I’ll finish out casting the maquettes,” the small versions of the bigger work.

Chytka said he already has cast 14 and has orders for 35. “I’m trying to do about three a week.”

Working with temperatures above 2,000 degrees in the summer is a bit warm.

“NutriSystem doesn’t have anything on me,” said Chytka. “You drink lots of water and pour (the molten metal) really early in the morning.”

He has other area cowboy projects to work on, too.

“I’m working on a stagecoach for the Days of ‘76 Museum in Deadwood,” he said.

“It would be a small rendition of the stagecoach that they used, and it’s going to be kind of a promotional tool for the museum.”

He’s also working on a piece for the Casey Tibbs bronc ride and a gunfighter for First Gold in Deadwood for Wild Bill Days.

For more information about the miniatures, contact Rexene Till at 375-3503.

All about Tipperary

Tipperary, the famed bucking horse, was born in the early days of ranching when it was still pretty much open range. Tony Chytka notes that the horse came from the Buffalo and Camp Crook area when the U.S. Cavalry discovered that nobody could ride the ornery critter.

Ed Marty tried to ride Tipperary on the street in Camp Crook. As he watched the horse from the unpaved street, Marty is supposed to have quoted a popular song of the day: “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.”

Tip became one of the new equine stars of the early sport of rodeo and helped put the Black Hills Roundup on the map as one of the premier events in a sport that took traditional cowboy skills into the arena for spectators who had only heard about the cowboy lifestyle.

Another Belle Fourche art connection to the famous horse is in Mick B. Harrison’s painting of Marty’s short ride on Tipperary at Camp Crook.