Gina McDougall

Virginia Ann Souther was born on 25 June 1927 in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois to Frances Louise (née Merriman) and Norman Gilbert Souther.[1] Her family, which included her brother Jack, immigrated to Canada when Souther was 7 years old.[2] She was raised on the Bar C Ranch, near Morley, Alberta.[3] She married Robert Hall McDougall, a rancher and livestock breeder, and the couple had three children, Sally, Robert Jr., and Jean.[4][5] They ran a ranch and McDougall trained both horses and riders,[6] as well as raising cattle and Quarter Horses.[7]

McDougall performed on the rodeo circuit for four years,[6] and won back-to-back Canadian Barrel Racing Championships in 1962 and 1963.[8][9][10] In 1973, she was commissioned to create a plaque to honor the historic and future participants, including rodeo performers, announcers, and rodeo clowns for the diamond jubilee of the Silver Buckle Rodeo in Red Deer, Alberta.[11][12] That year, she was also commissioned to create RCMP Musical Ride, a sculpture depicting the famed figure of the Canadian Mountie for Queen Elizabeth II.[13][14] She was one of eight exhibitors invited to participate in the first art show hosted by the Calgary Stampede in 1977.[3]

For twenty years, the Stampede commissioned McDougall to create their championship trophy bronzes.[15] She was also commissioned by the Alberta Standardbred Horse Association and other stock breeding organizations as a sculptor for their championship trophies.[16][17] Her preferred medium was bronze and her typical themes were motifs of western culture and horses.[7] Her early works were produced under the name Gina McDougall, and after 1975, she worked under the name Gina McDougall Cohoe or Gina Cohoe,[18][19] after her marriage to Thoroughbred trainer and breeder, Ken Cohoe.[20]

In 2007, at the inaugural induction for the Western Art Show Hall of Fame, Cohoe was honoured along with Malcolm J. MacKenzie, a fellow bronze sculptor from Alberta.[3] In 2013, she was inducted into the Canadian Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame.[6]

Cohoe died on 21 May 2014 at her ranch in Cremona, Alberta, Canada.[2] She has works in the private collections of the Royal family of Jordan, Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth, country singer Randy Travis, and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.[3][7][15]