Portrait by David Fenton

John Coleman's fingers caress a lump of clay and a muscle and leg bone of a buffalo emerge as if given life.

A life-size mannequin of a buffalo stands nearby in Coleman’s Prescott, Ariz., sculpture studio, but he doesn’t pay it any mind this day. He doesn’t have to. He knows the animal’s anatomy well, for he has portrayed the buffalo many times in his art. Having had its beginnings in clay, one 11- x 9-foot bronze work, titled Visions of Change, contains a virtual herd of buffaloes, along with longhorn steers, and a cowboy and Indian. All express this artist’s stock in trade—storytelling. He says a deeper meaning, or metaphor, lies behind each of his works.

“Visions of Change is my attempt to capsulize this brief period [the 1870s] in which the cowboys and Indians co-existed on the same land, living off very similar animals, but at the same time, in total conflict.”

The acclaimed sculptor, a member of the Cowboy Artists of America (CAA), can’t remember a time when he didn’t consider himself an artist: Thinking of himself so and being so professionally were two different things for a time, however. While in high school in hometown Manhattan Beach, Calif., a talented young Coleman won a scholarship to the Art Center for Design in Los Angeles. But life had something else in store for him.

“My wife, Sue, and I got married as teenagers right out of high school,” the 57-year-old sculptor recalls with a grin. “My art career was on hold, and I took art up again when I was 44 years old.” During the intervening years, as the couple raised two daughters, Coleman painted as an avocation and was a real estate developer by profession, in California and then in Prescott, having moved to Arizona in 1972.

This affable man with handlebar mustache shifted artistic gears along the way, studied with top sculptors, and today is well-known for his bronzes, “99 percent” of which depict Native American themes. Coleman, who loves Native American traditions and history, says he’s not seeking to idealize this country’s indigenous peoples, but rather to portray their history as it was: like the white man’s, a matter of survival. He also strives to illuminate the morality tales passed down by Native Americans through generations, calling the stories he admires a form of “mythology.”

One of the artist’s sculptures, Addih-Hiddisch, Hidatsa Chief, is on permanent display at the Phoenix Art Museum. The work, measuring more than 7 feet x 4 feet, won the Kieckhefer Award for Best in Show, as well as the Gold Medal for Sculpture, at the 2004 Cowboy Artists of America show. Jerry Smith, the museum’s associate curator of American Art, praises Coleman’s creations for their “high degree of naturalism.” He adds: “They are quite moving. The story he wants to tell comes through. For a Western artist, he’s definitely at the top of his field.”

Coleman also garners praise from his peers. CAA member and painter Howard Terpning owns two Coleman sculptures. “[John] has a wonderful way of portraying the human figure, always with grace and dignity, and his anatomy is flawless.” CAA president, painter Wayne Baize, relates: “John’s work is very sensitive. He portrays emotion so well in his bronzes.”

That also is the opinion of one of Coleman’s biggest fans, Scottsdale resident Howard Alper. With wife Frankie, he began collecting Coleman’s works when the artist had just started his second career. The sculptor recalls the exact moment in 1993 when Alper asked him if he could be his number-one collector. “At that point it was hard for me to comprehend what that meant. But, of course, I said, ‘Yes.’”

And what does that mean to Coleman? “Howard has one version of everything I do—and it always is No. 1,” replies this delighted Master of the Southwest.

Photo by John Coleman Warrior’s Lament, bronze, 20" high

Photo by John Coleman Addih-Hiddisch, Hidatsa Chief, bronze, 7' high, was inspired by an 1833 Karl Bodmer painting. The bronze is part of a sculpture series based on paintings of Indians by artist/explorers Bodmer and George Catlin.