Installation artist Stan Herd bringing to life image of the late Bob Dole on Lawrence hillside

LAWRENCE — Artist Stan Herd can flip back through the pages of time to recall chance meetings with politician Bob Dole.

But Herd cherished a chat with Dole at a Lawrence hotel in which the two men reminisced about their connections to World War II. They reflected on Dole’s life-changing combat in the mountains of Italy as well as the military service of Herd’s father in the Pacific theater.

Dole, a native of Russell, overcame near-fatal wounds to serve in Congress and was a three-time Republican presidential candidate before his death in 2021.

“I wouldn’t say I was close to him until later when I saw him a few years back,” Herd said. “He was very sharp. We never really talked about politics.”

Herd, who has created a collection of massive images using the earth as a canvas, worked Friday on a tribute to Dole on grounds of the Robert Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas. The project is part of a celebration marking the 100th anniversary of Dole’s birth and 20th anniversary of the Dole Institute.

Audrey Coleman, director of the Dole Institute, said the objective was to commemorate the anniversaries through broad engagement with the public. A celebration of Dole’s bipartisan leadership can serve as inspiration for the next generation, she said.

“The Dole Institute’s mission to cultivate common ground and bipartisan compromise in tomorrow’s leaders has never been more important,” Coleman said.

Herd’s career in painting and installation art has spanned 40 years. He’s completed projects with major companies and organizations. There are earthworks in Kansas and a dozen other states as well as China, Cuba, Australia and Brazil. His art has delved into issues of the environment, agriculture, science and the humanities.

He developed outdoor portraits — some temporary, others permanent — of entertainer Will Rogers, Kiowa Chief Satanta, aviator Amelia Earhart, author Elie Wiesel, President Joe Biden, writer Maya Angelou and politician John Lewis.

In 1994, he completed “Countryside,” an image of the Kansas landscape on New York property owned by Donald Trump. The 2001 “Rosa Blanca” project in Havana was inspired by a poem by Cuban native Jose Marti. Others dot Kansas, including the petroglyph-like image of a prairie dweller in Cowley County and the “Medicine Wheel” at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence.

In April, Herd ceremonially broke ground for the temporary Dole portrait under construction on the east side of the Dole Institute. He was joined with shovel-toting former U.S. Sens. Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Trent Lott of Mississippi — both peers of Dole.

A campaign photograph of Dole was selected by the Dole Institute for the earthwork. The project will incorporate tiles painted by students illustrating their sentiments about Kansas.

The earthwork is to be presented July 22 during a free, family-friendly event at the Dole Institute also featuring a military flyover and music. It was 20 years ago on July 22 — Dole’s 80th birthday — that he spoke at dedication of the Dole Institute along with former President Jimmy Carter, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and broadcaster Tom Brokaw.

Herd’s landscape portrait is scheduled to remain in place through the October homecoming football game at KU.

“I am honored to have the opportunity to create a work that signifies reengaging people with the legacy of this distinguished Kansan and his leadership that prioritized finding common ground,” Herd said. “That is a concept that could use some attention these days.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story indicated Herd traveled to Cuba with Dole. Herd went to Cuba to work on art projects, but was not accompanied by the late U.S. senator from Kansas.