Dick Idol

Artist’s Bio

First a little history… In his younger days, Dick Idol grew up in the rural countryside of North Carolina where he spent most of his time in the woods and playing sports. As an athlete, he played football and baseball on a full-ride scholarship to North Carolina State University, resulting in offers to play in the NFL. However, his passion was always the outdoors. After college, Dick moved to Alaska where he owned and operated one of the top taxidermy businesses, which eventually evolved to include guiding, outfitting and booking hunts for big game clients around the world. In the 1970’s Dick began to focus on his special interest, whitetail deer. Over the next three decades, he amassed the greatest whitetail antler collection in the world, which included the famous Hole-In-the-Horn buck and many state records. That collection now resides in the Bass-Pro Museum in
Springfield, MO.

In the 1980’s, he co-founded North American Whitetail magazine and launched a show circuit displaying his Whitetail collection, which often included Dick as an expert seminar speaker, also helping to launch numerous Whitetail shows in several states, including the Dixie Deer Classic in Raleigh, NC. With all his exposure from writing books and articles, his show circuits and speaking, instructional videos, television shows, product endorsements, operation of Whitetail hunts and many other Whitetail activities, he soon became the most widely recognized personality in the world of the Whitetail.

In the mid- 1990’s, Dick launched the “Dick Idol” brand in the realm of furniture and home furnishings. Since that time, the “Dick Idol” brand has been the label on thousands of products that include furniture, accessories, lighting, floor coverings, wall décor and many other product categories. Today, the “Dick Idol” brand is widely regarded as the most recognized brand in the categories of Rustic and Outdoor home furnishings. In October 2016, Dick will launch an extensive new furniture collection at the International Furniture Market in High Point, NC. In the early 1990’s Dick finally recognized his genuine love and passion for art. He embraced drawing, painting and sculpture and became a student of fine art. Within the first few years, he was commissioned for some of the largest bronze monuments in North America. It wasn’t long before Dick was incorporating his artwork in functional home furnishing products and marketing fine art in both flat and three dimensional mediums across several lifestyle categories.

Today, Dick Idol is one of America’s best known authentic outdoorsman, wildlife artist and brand personalities. In 2012, Dick was inducted into the Outdoor Legends Hall of Fame. Dick and his wife, Toni Rae, opened the Dick Idol Signature Gallery, a fine art gallery located in downtown Whitefish, Montana in the Spring of 2012. The gallery is home to more than 30 nationally acclaimed western artists and includes much of Dick’s artwork, along with that of his son, Colt Idol, one of the fastest rising stars in the western art world today.