John Sherrill Houser Society and the American National Portrait Society. John Sherrill Houser John Sherrill Houser (1935 – January 10, 2018) was an American painter and sculptor. He was born in Rapid City, South Dakota where his father, Ivan Houser, was assistant sculptor to Gutzon Borglum in the early years of carving Mount Rushmore; he began working with Borglum shortly after the inception of the monument and was with Borglum for a total of seven years. When Houser left Gutzon to devote his talents to his own work, Gutzon's son, Lincoln, took over as Assistant- sculptor to his father. Encouraged in art from
Gutzon Borglum and urges strict immigration policies. Borglum was initially involved in the carving of Stone Mountain in Georgia. Borglum's nativist stances made him seem an ideologically sympathetic choice to carve a memorial to heroes of the Confederacy, planned for Stone Mountain, Georgia. In 1915, he was approached by the United Daughters of the Confederacy with a project for sculpting a high bust of General Robert E. Lee on the mountain's rockface. Borglum accepted, but told the committee, "Ladies, a twenty-foot head of Lee on that mountainside would look like a postage stamp on a barn door.'" Borglum's ideas eventually evolved into