Tarpon Carving
Stephen R. Smith (b. 1942)
Jamestown, NY
base is 88 in. long, 38 in. wide
This grand tarpon carving measures seventy-five inches from tip to tail. It is mounted on a beveled-edge wooden base which displays the maker’s plaque on the bottom left.

After master carver Steve Smith completed this striking carving, the artist said it was the first one of the species he’d done, and likely the last. In 2019 the American Museum of Fly Fishing held an exhibition of the carver’s works titled “Commemorating the Catch: Fish Carvings by Stephen R. Smith.”

“Close examination of Smith carvings helps explain what sets his work apart. He is recreating specific great fish, rich in distinctive individual detail…There are elements of both realism and impressionism in his work…the colors of these carvings are remarkably lifelike, but trompe l’oeil shadings suggest dimensionality and even interior structures glimpsed through translucent flesh. This blending of techniques is masterful yet so subtle that it creates a unique visual experience,” writes Jim Brown.

David Nichols writes, “One can see the influence of his predecessors—particularly John Russell, John Tully, and Dhuie Russell Tully—in Steve’s work, which itself ranks alongside the best carvings of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.”

“There is reverence for nature at the heart of all Smith’s work,” according to Brown, and this grand approximately one- hundred and sixty pound trophy model represents the finest tarpon carving we’ve ever come across.
Literature: Jim Brown, "Stephen R. Smith: Trophy Fish Carver," The American Fly Fisher, Vol. 45, No. 3, Summer 2019, pp. 14-16.

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