Meadowlark Gallery: The Artist Biographies

Ulysses Grant Speed
Ulysses Grant Speed is a traditional sculptor of bronzes of the Old West and was born in San Angelo, Texas in 1930. He was raised during the Depression, Grant Speed never doubted that he would be a rancher. At the age of twelve, he began to summer on a ranch that was "the neatest place on earth." After he graduated from high school at the age of seventeen, he became a working cowboy which took him to fifteen ranches by the time he was twenty two. After two enlistments in the U. S. Air Force, he still was no closer to buying a ranch on his own. He enrolled in animal husbandry at Brigham Young University. For a brief period he was a professional bronc rider in the rodeo until he injured a leg. In 1962, he qualified as a teacher and in two years he knew that he was in the wrong job. After teaching school all day, he taught himself to sculpt, and by 1965 was selling bronzes. The next year he was accepted into the Cowboy Artists of America and his career was established.
View high resolution images of works by Ulysses Grant Speed when available.