Will Rogers Riding into the Sunset - Dallas, Texas - Smithsonian Art Inventory Sculptures on Waymarking.com

Riding Into the Sunset by Electra Waggoner. This heroic-sized equestrian statue was commissioned by Fort Worth, Texas, publisher Amon Carter. One of four known bronze versions of this work is posed over the tomb of Will Rogers at the Claremore museum. It depicts Will Rogers on his favorite horse, Soapsuds, facing the West, holding his hat in his right hand.

Electra Waggoner was her madain name. Her married name was Electra Waggoner Biggs. Biggs' grandfather was famed Texas cattleman and horseman W.T. "Pappy" Waggoner, who inherited the Waggoner Ranch from his father, cattle baron Dan Waggoner. He also bred thoroughbred horses and built the Arlington Downs racetrack that operated in Arlington during the 1930s.

Her father, E. Paul Waggoner, was a quarter horse breeder and a lover of Western lore who built the Santa Rosa Roundup on 160 acres of family land, just south of Vernon.

Born in 1912 in Fort Worth, Biggs began sculpting while studying in New York.

Her beauty inspired the naming of an automobile, the Buick Electra, and of an aircraft, the Lockheed Electra. Harlow H. Curtice, president of General Motors' Buick Motor Division when the Buick model was named in 1959, was the brother-in-law of Biggs husband, John Biggs.

Biggs accepted a commission from Amon G. Carter, Sr., in 1937 to sculpt an equestrian of Will Rogers and Soapsuds. She was dissatisfied with the first model and after five years of work, she started over. She used a New York Police Department horse that resembled Soapsuds and hired a model similar in physique to Will Rogers to pose on a barrel in her studio. The first bronze casting was installed in 1947 at the Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum in Fort Worth. Other castings are placed in Lubbock and Claremore, Oklahoma. This casting was made in 1989 at Castleberry Art Foundry in Weatherford, Texas

She passed away in 2001 in Vernon Texas where the WT Waggoner Ranch is located.

Inscription:
(Left side:)
Executed by Electra Waggoner Biggs
(Back of sculpture:)
Cast by Metz Castleberry
Weatherford, Texas
(Front of sculpture:)
Will Rogers
Riding into the Sunset
1879-1935
(Bronze plaque on front of base:)
Will Rogers
Into the Sunset
by
Electra Waggoner Biggs

TITLE: Will Rogers Riding into the Sunset ARTIST(S): Biggs, Electra Waggoner, 1916-2001 , sculptor, Castleberry, Metz, caster, Castleberry Art Foundry, founder. DATE: ca. 1941.; Cast 1989. MEDIUM: Statue: bronze; Base: concrete. CONTROL NUMBER: IAS TX000009 Direct Link to the Individual Listing in the Smithsonian Art Inventory: [Web Link] PHYSICAL LOCATION: Hilton Anatole Hotel 2201 Stemmons Freeway Dallas, Texas DIFFERENCES NOTED BETWEEN THE INVENTORY LISTING AND YOUR OBSERVATIONS AND RESEARCH: Name of hotel changed.

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