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"Kewpie of the Month" for March 2004 Sabra Tull Meyer - Class of 1945 
Courtesy of Sabra Tull Meyer (Story) See more about this great KEWPIE! Webpages containing information about Sabra's work
"Bronze
"Kewpie" Comes to Hickman
Sabra Tull by The
Columbia Daily Tribune Back
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I graduated from Hickman High School in 1945 graduated from the University of Missouri in 1949, married, have four children, five grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. We have lived in Kansas City, Missouri and Dallas, Texas and returned to Columbia in 1967. I enrolled in grad school at the University of Missouri in 1975 and received a Master of Arts in 1979 and a Master of Fine Arts in 1982. I taught at Stephens College 10 years and William Woods University 2 years. After retiring in 1989 I have devoted my time to sculpting. My work is cast in bronze. I have work in private collections and numerous public spaces; the campus of Central Methodist College, the M.K.T. Trail (Columbia, Missouri), Museum of Art & Archeology and Jesse Hall (University of Missouri), Bourgeoise Vineyards (Rocheport, Missouri), Capitol Building (Jefferson City, Missouri), Court House Square (Columbia Missouri) and City Hall (Boonville, Missouri). I have recently completed a bust of George Washington commissioned by Washington, Missouri to be unveiled on May 15, 2004 in Washington, Missouri and I am sculpting a second bust of Walter Williams for the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri, to be completed June of 2004. In the past few years I have sculpted a bust of Edwin Hubble for the Hall of Famous Missourians at the Capitol Building in Jefferson City, Missouri; Walter Williams, founder of the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri for Boonville, Missouri; Governor Roger Wilson for Columbia, Missouri; Coach Norm Stewart for Columbia, Missouri; Stanley Ginn for the State Highway Patrol Museum in Jefferson City, Missouri and a new commission to sculpt a bust of Virginia Young for the Columbia Public Library. A second bust of Walter Williams is commissioned for the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri. For the past two years, I have been sculpting figures for a monument to Lewis and Clark planned for the Capitol Complex in Jefferson City, Missouri. The fund raising is ongoing. We appeared on the Paul Pepper Show March 9, 2004 to exhibit some of the figures that have been finished. Back to Top of Page 
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Recognizing the rich artistic legacy of Columbia's
Sabra Tull Meyer
Columbia Daily Tribune
Like one of the many bronze sculptures she fashioned, Sabra Tull Meyer lived a
life of beauty and purpose, forever fixing herself in Missouri's memory.
A prolific force on the local art scene whose work rippled far beyond Columbia,
Meyer died last week, exactly one month before she would have turned 96.
To live in Columbia means moving among Meyer's creations, holding her work in
view almost daily. She created "The
Shell Seeker" sculpture at Columbia Public Library, and the Don
Patterson memorial at the MKT Trailhead off Stadium Boulevard.
Her work has graced such institutions as the Missouri Theatre, Stephens Lake
Park, Hickman High School, the Columbia Board of Education building, multiple
Columbia college campuses and more.
This presence rings almost as true across the rest of Missouri. The
Corps of Discovery monument, which Meyer's daughter Sabra Johnson
called her magnum opus, resides outside the Capitol in Jefferson City. Her busts
of well-known Missourians — including George Caleb Bingham, Lamar Hunt and Bob
Barker — live inside the statehouse.
And Meyer's busts of Kansas City Chiefs legends such as Priest Holmes and Nick
Lowery occupy the team's Hall of Honor at Arrowhead Stadium.
Meyer completed her final bronze in her 95th year — a sculpture of Rose
Philippine Duchesne, a French nun who ministered throughout Missouri in the
first half of the 19th century and was canonized a saint in 1988.
A 2014 Missouri Arts Council
report on artists and aging foreshadowed
the way Meyer would stay vibrant, still creating, to the very end.
"Sabra is aging the way we all want to. Her health is strong, her mind keen, her
creativity fresh," Barbara MacRobie wrote. "She has had to make only small
concessions to the mileage on the mechanism."
Meyer's passion for art propelled her to keep working through her 90s, Johnson
said.
"It was something that she needed to do to express herself," she said. "Using
the clay that eventually would become a bronze figure was certainly her way of
expressing her artistic talent. ... I really think that's what kept her going
and kept her young."
Perhaps lost in consideration of Meyer's prolific nature is the fact that she
completed the Corps of Discovery monument at age 80, Johnson said. At a
gathering last fall, Meyer mused on the work and said, "Oh, to be 80 again," her
daughter recalled.
That work especially exhibits Meyer's attention to detail, Johnson said. To
complete the figures of Lewis, Clark and their cohorts, the artist spent "at
least" two years in study and preparation, ensuring she delivered every
historical nuance just so, she said.
"As she said, 'If I make a mistake, it will be 8 feet tall,'" Johnson said.
Among her mother's remarkable canon, Johnson is especially drawn to figures of
two young ballerinas. "The fluidity of the figures, the ponytails in the air,"
all the motion somehow captured in bronze, remains truly special, she said.
While Meyer worked across a variety of media, something about bronze truly moved
her. The union of the momentary and the enduring resonated — and offered a
refreshing sense of possibility beyond one artist's lifespan, even one as long
and celebrated as Meyer's.
"There’s something about the permanence of bronze that I really like," Meyer
told MacRobie in 2014. "Knowing my work can still be there in a hundred years.
Or even longer — they’ve brought up ancient Greek bronzes from the seabed. How
cool, thinking of my art being archaeology of the future!"
Beyond Meyer's public-facing work, an intimate, ongoing archaeology is known to
her family. The artist created bronze busts of each of her grandchildren.
"She wanted to capture the personality, the whim, of each grandchild. And she
did that," Johnson said.
And Meyer's name will keep ringing through the lives of her loved ones
— literally. The first name Sabra, accompanied by different middle names, has
been passed down to the women of their family since the 1820s; Johnson's own
granddaughter represents the eighth generation of Sabras, she said.
That reality seems so fitting for Meyer, whose work and spirit forms an
inheritance that will be shared into the foreseeable future.
Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him
at adanielsen@columbiatribune.com or by calling 573-815-1731. Find him on
Twitter @aarikdanielsen.
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