The Southeast Texas art community is mourning the loss of renowned sculptor David Cargill, who died late Thursday at the age of 96.
“We lost one of the great ones,” The Art Studio, Inc. Executive Director and ceramic artist Greg Busceme said, counting himself lucky to have been among the few who got to work with Cargill.
“He was pretty much a loner, so not many got close to him,” Busceme said.
While Cargill may have kept to himself in his personal life, he became an integral part of the landscape of Southeast Texas. His work showed up in numerous public and private spaces from the Civic Center plaza, to the Port Arthur Public Library, the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, numerous churches, businesses, private residences and the campus of Lamar University, where his iconic Mirabeau Lamar head commands the quadrangle.
The latter piece is among those Cargill noted in a personal website entitled “Sacred Spaces.”
“My sculptures have stood the test of time and storm,” he wrote. “When Hurricane Rita came ashore on the heels of Katrina, she destroyed homes and tore down thousands of trees all over Beaumont, but my sculptures, like the heroic head of Mirabeau Lamar that is the symbol of Lamar University, still stand.”
They will remain standing, a testament to the man who created them, well beyond his own passing in time, as will other pieces found in major cities across the south like Dallas, Phoenix, Austin and Jackson, Mississippi.
Born in 1929 in Huntsville, Cargill studied briefly at Rice University before his interest and talent in the arts pulled him to the prestigious Pratt Institute in New York. He went on to earn his MFA in sculpture from equally-renowned Cranbrook Institute in Michigan before settling into life as a professional artist, first in Europe and then back in the United States, where he later taught at Lamar University.
Cargill’s work embraces a variety of medium, from wood to bronze, stone to marble and ceramics to glass.
His fluid figures, sometimes reaching heights of 20 feet or more, were once described by Art Museum of Southeast Texas Curator Caitlin Clay as pieces “that seem to move, twist and breathe.”
Her depiction of Cargill’s work, exploring themes of humanity, love and whimsy, accompanied what was his last major solo exhibit, David Cargill: The Lighter Side, at AMSET in 2021.
Services for David Cargill are still pending.