Robert Temple Summers was born on August 13, 1940. He began creating figures and animals with bread dough at the age of two, was painting and sketching by school age, and graduated to oil at the age of nine. Summers has no formal training and works as a painter and sculptor. He resides in Glen Rose, Texas. He was awarded Official Texas Bicentennial Artist in 1976 and Artist of the Year in 2003 by the Academy of Western Artists. He said he was pleased to see a community interested in the history that made them what they are, adding that Texas Longhorns and the rugged men who moved them are legendary and say Texas to the rest of the world.