Large Doug Hyde (American, b. 1946) Hand Carved Alabaster Sculpture. Comes with pedestal - 28" high x 20" wide. Sculpture - 32 1/2" high x 20" wide x 19" deep. Known for native American figures, Doug Hyde casts bronze sculpture from original stone work but prefers to do originals from stone because he loves the resistance of the medium. He has been a long-time resident of Santa Fe, New Mexico, but was born in Hermiston, Oregon into the Nez Perce tribe. He attended the San Francisco Art Institute, and the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe where he was one of the first students of Allan Houser, the highly successful Apache sculptor. Hyde then served in the Army for two tours of Vietnam, and was seriously wounded in a Saigon grenade attack. In the early 1970s, he returned to Santa Fe to succeed Houser in directing the Institute's sculpture program, and then in 1974 turned to full-time studio work. Because of Hyde's skill as a sculptor combined with his closeness to the Indian culture and his war experience, he was chosen by business people in Phoenix, Arizona to create a monument to the Code Talkers, Navajo soldiers during World War II who used the language as military code, something the Japanese were unable to decipher. Because the Navajos were so young at the time of their service, he depicted a young man as a non-warrier, seated on the ground and playing his flute to calm the sheep he was herding. The work, Code Talker, completed in the late 1980s, is installed outside an office complex at Central Avenue and Thomas Roads in the downtown business district. In 1996, Hyde was named Santa Fe's Distinguished Artist and has also received the Great American Artist Award from the Cincinnati Museum Center in Ohio.