Charles Earnhardt for Aus-Ben Mfg. Industries, Inc.
1302 East King Street, Boone, North Carolina 28607
Cold Cast Bronze (bronze powder and resin composite), hand painted
USA, 1979
Approximately 2 inches tall, 3 inches wide
This compact cold cast bronze buffalo — a standing bull amid tall grass on a slight upslope terrain base — is an early piece from Charles Earnhardt's Cold Cast Bronze Wildlife Collection for Aus-Ben Mfg. Industries, Inc., produced in Boone, North Carolina in 1979. At just two inches tall and three inches wide, it is among the smaller works in the collection, but the quality of observation and execution punches well above its scale: the animal's characteristic forward lean, the massive shoulder hump, the heavy-coated forequarters contrasting with the smoother hindquarters, and the naturalistic grass base all reflect a sculptor who studied his subjects carefully. The base retains its original green felt pad — standard Aus-Ben practice — confirming the piece's original condition.
Cold cast bronze — a composite of resin and bronze powder cast into a mold, then hand-finished — was the defining medium of Aus-Ben's output. The process produces a material heavier and warmer to the touch than plain resin, takes fine surface detail well, and develops a convincing patina over time. It was a practical democratization of the traditional lost-wax bronze process, making naturalistic wildlife sculpture accessible at gift-shop price points without sacrificing the tactile and visual character that makes bronze appealing. Earnhardt used the medium to its strengths: the buffalo's textured coat, the rippled grass of the base, and the hand-painted color gradation from dark brown on the forequarters to lighter tones on the body are all consistent with the careful finishing that distinguished Aus-Ben's pieces from purely mass-produced alternatives.
Aus-Ben Mfg. Industries, Inc., operating from 1302 East King Street in Boone in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, produced cold cast bronze wildlife figurines from the late 1970s through the early 1990s across several named series. The Cold Cast Bronze Wildlife Collection — of which this buffalo is an early example — focused on North American fauna and was among the studio's foundational lines. Later series included the Kennel Collection of dog breeds, the Woodland Seasons series, and Stump Dwellers, as well as a notable collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution. Charles Earnhardt was the company's principal sculptor throughout its active years, responsible for the anatomical research, original modeling, and design vocabulary that defined the Aus-Ben aesthetic. The company has since closed and its pieces are no longer in production, which has sustained a modest secondary market among collectors of American wildlife art and cold cast bronze figurines.
The 1979 production date places this buffalo at the very beginning of Aus-Ben's documented output, making it among the earliest known pieces from the company. The buffalo subject was a natural choice for a North Carolina wildlife artist in 1979 — the species had been recovering from near-extinction for a century, was a fixture of national park tourism, and carried the full weight of American conservation mythology. That Earnhardt situated his buffalo not on a plain neutral base but within a specific habitat moment — standing in tall grass on rising ground — reflects a sculptor thinking ecologically rather than merely iconographically. The label's use of "Buffalo" rather than "Bison" is consistent with common American vernacular of the period and reflects the populist, accessible character of the Cold Cast Bronze Wildlife Collection as a whole.
