Published: October 25, 2007 04:51 pm         

Terre Haute native wins best of show at Art Expo

LAS VEGAS — Larry R. Rankin, a Terre Haute native, recently won best of show in sculpture/3D at the International Art Expo in Las Vegas.

Rankin, who now lives in Santa Barbara, Calif., attended the four-day expo at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.

Rankin is a figurative sculptor, creating abstracted human groups out of cast bronze, welded metal, carved wood and stone.

Rankin spent his boyhood years in Terre Haute and graduated from Wiley High School. After serving with the Army in Vietnam, he entered Northern Arizona University at Flagstaff. Faculty there described his bachelor of fine arts exhibit as “the finest in the university’s history.”

His sculptures range from 6 inches to 71⁄2 feet. They have been exhibited widely in galleries and museums from San Francisco to Maryland and have met with critical acclaim.

One of his works, “Brotherhood,” a four-ton sandstone sculpture that he co-created with a Mexican sculptor, is on permanent exhibit at Guadalajara’s Jalisco State Cultural Fine Arts Center.

Rankin’s work has been noted in multiple fine art magazines since the early 1980s, and has been on display at the Sheldon Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute.

The International Art Expo in Las Vegas, touted as “the world’s largest name in fine and popular art shows on the east and west coasts,” concluded Sept. 30.

Artists from 16 countries around the world attended the show.

Over its 30-year history, Art Expo has witnessed the development of many of the art world’s most popular names, including Andy Warhol, Robert Indiana, Peter Max, and many others who used the show to help launch their careers.

Rankin will be featured in the next isue of Art Business News.

More information about Rankin and his works can be found online at www.larry

rrankin-sculptor.com.