Dale Lamphere

Voice of the Stone. 2023. Stainless Steel and Stone.

(Currently displayed in the Art Masters 2023 exhibit at the Minnehaha Country Club.)

“Voice of a Stone” is a synthesis of stainless steel and stone, each echoing and clarifying the other. My objective is to elevate our awareness of the beauty and complexity of natural elements.

Sculptor Dale Lamphere of Sturgis SD has completed over 70 major public commissions across the US, from the Basilica of the National Shrine in Washington, D.C. to the City of Burbank in California. Othercreations have been placed throughout the Midwest, including Chicago, Kansas City, Colorado Springs, Dallas, Omaha, and Snowmass CO. 

More locally, Lamphere created ‘Dignity’ in 2016, a 50-foot, 12-ton stainless steel sculpture of a native woman holding a blue star quilt, dedicated with a cross-cultural celebration on a bluff above the Missouri River near Chamberlain SD. In 2019 Lamphere completed the ‘Arc of Dreams’, a 300-foot stainless steel span across the Big Sioux River in Sioux Falls, which echoes of the journey we all take in the pursuit of our dreams. 

Lamphere’s work explores a broad range of materials and subjects from monumental landscapes, to human forms, to abstract design.Lamphere still finds natural forms an enduring inspiration that evoke in him a distilled and elegant response. The common thread that runs through his work is the lyric gesture and full volume that he sees in his mountain and prairie environment. 

In 2015 South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard named Lamphere the South Dakota Artist Laureate, a position that had been vacant since the 1983 death of Oscar Howe, who was given the honor in 1954.Lamphere received the Anna Hyatt Huntington Award, the Governor’s Award for Creative Achievement and awards from both architectural and engineering societies. He has received three honorary doctorates.Inducted to the SD Hall of Fame in 1987, Lamphere has served on the boards of directors for the Journey Museum, the SD Arts Council, and South Dakotans for the Arts. He has presented numerous solo exhibitions across the Midwest, Chicago, and New York City.

A teacher of art for over four decades, Lamphere said, “more than ever I am focused on encouraging future artists and giving back to the community of the arts in South Dakota. I am deeply grateful.”

visit www.lampherestudio.com