This sculpture is in recognition of the BADDEST AZZZ story in all of the history of Sporting Art. I saw this painting at SCI a few years back and it blew me away. It is huge like 7 feet across and the frame is giant. The image is the most unflinching and honest painting I have ever seen
The true story is basically as follows. Fredrick Kuhnert was a German painter making a nice living in Berlin in the early part of the last century before WW1. His specialty was wild animals, which were few in Berlin. The drill back then was to go to the zoo and paint say a Lion and then paint something that looked like the Garden of Eden as background.
Kuhnert was also a hunter and against the advice of pretty much everyone he was determined to go to Africa to paint and see the animals in their natural setting. Cries of , “they will eat you it is a savage land, you will die of disease, why leave you comfortable life for nothing” fell on deaf ears… he was determined to hunt and paint the animals of Africa
One day he was in remote outpost and someone came in excitedly saying come Come!!!! Lion!!!!…. Keeelll….. keel…… lions hurry hurry!!!!” knowing Kuhnert had the only gun for many miles . When he arrived he saw what was in the painting. The lion had just finished eating the bicycle riding mailman. Kuhnert shot the lion and would never part with the painting skull or he used until his death…
I decided to do commemorative piece to dedicated to Kuhnert and sculpted what I saw as the minutes before Kuhnerts painting. I wanted the attitude of the lion to be calm and purposeful, after all nothing personal just eating meat.
Seriously awesome work. That would bring a tear to Capstick's eye.
