Sam Gore's Working Man Sculpture Heads to Mississippi College

Sam Gore

Visitors to the Mississippi Agriculture & Forestry Museum can’t miss seeing Sam Gore’s “working man” sculpture depicting a farmer clutching a Bible with a dog at his side.

A replica of the splendid piece of art is soon coming to Mississippi College’s Clinton campus. The work by the internationally celebrated artist will remain on permanent display outdoors at the Gore Galleries, with its arrival set for Wednesday, August 17.

“It’s a very good work – we get lots of comment on it,” says Charlie Dixon, director of the Mississippi Agriculture & Forestry Museum in Jackson. “It adds a lot to the museum,” he said. “It is supposed to represent the farmer.”

Earlier this year, Gore borrowed the sculpture in Jackson for four months. He needed time to do some remolding work with the piece recently finished at a foundry near Memphis. With the recasting completed, the original went back on display near the front of the main building of the museum off Lakeland Drive.

Opened in 1983, the museum attracts 100,000 visitors annually. The agriculture museum is well-known for its small town Mississippi setting, including a church and a jail, the Ethnic Heritage Center, the National Agricultural Aviation Museum and attractions like Gore’s “working man” sculpture. The museum is a popular destination point for thousands of youngsters on school field trips every year.

Retired MC art professor Kenneth Quinn of Jackson is anxious to see Gore’s replica spotlighted on the Clinton campus. “It will enhance the sculpture garden” at the Gore Galleries, he said. It’s a secular piece of art with “a twinge of Americana,” Quinn said.

Quinn was on hand with officials like the late Mississippi Agriculture Commissioner Jim Buck Ross, and U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran plus a number of agriculture leaders from Washington when Gore’s original work was first unveiled at the Jackson museum over 20 years ago.

The 83-year-old Gore, who first joined the MC faculty in the early 1950s, refuses to slow down. The Clinton resident has pieces of art displayed all over metro Jackson and beyond.

His Jesus and the Children sculpture sits on a walkway outside the School of Education at Mississippi College not far from his Servant Savior sculpture near Provine Chapel. His sculptures of Moses and the Ten Commandments, and Jesus and His disciples are located on an exterior wall at the Mississippi College School of Law in downtown Jackson.

The Mississippi College graduate is also finishing work on a sculpture that salutes America’s military veterans. The work is to be displayed at the Clinton Visitors Center off the Natchez Trace Parkway. It depicts two longtime Clinton friends on the battlefield during the Korean War.