I was raised in the midlands of Rhodesia where this little antelope was seen every day if you were out in the bush. I was given a .22 rifle when I was still a very young boy and this animal, as far as my Dad was concerned, was Royal Game and I was never allowed to hunt one.
The Steen Buck is diurnal and hardly moves at night and as such was not a fellow that bothered my mother’s flowers and her vegetables under the cover of darkness.
To this day I hold this little red antelope in high esteem and whenever I am in Africa it remains a real pleasure to see them and to realize that they are still wandering the grasslands of Southern Africa.
John Tolmay
Born in Southern Rhodesia in 1943, John Tolmay grew up immersed in the African bush, where an early fascination with wildlife and nature inspired him to begin drawing his observations. After agricultural college in South Africa, he traveled to Europe and the United States, working as a cowboy in Nebraska and New Mexico before returning to Rhodesia in 1966 to ranch.
Tolmay began guiding African hunting safaris in 1974, an experience that gave him an intimate understanding of wildlife, movement, and anatomy - knowledge that would later become fundamental to his work as a sculptor. He completed and sold his first bronze in 1989 and has since devoted himself to capturing the animals and experiences of a lifetime spent in the wild.
A committed conservationist as well as an artist, Tolmay founded Zambia's Nyawa Pilot Project, promoting community-based wildlife management and a sustainable relationship between rural communities and their natural resources.
