Brodin Studios made its very first “Custom Cop” miniature in 1980-81 for the then Minneapolis Chief of Police, Anthony Bouza. It was a six inch tall, highly detailed little bronze sculpture customized as an exact copy of a Minneapolis Police Officer in summer uniform. Soon, many neighboring police departments were ordering bronze statues of their uniforms, badges, patches, and so on, but when our FBI Special Agent friends asked for something customized to their “uniform,” we were lost until SA Jeff Glover suggested to reproduce the look of a 1930′s Government Agent (G-Man) so a Thompson was taken out of the gun locker, Jeff posed and the first “G-Man” statue was sculpted. The little bronzes were sold exclusively to Special Agents, a copy of their badge was added later and donations were made to Leukemia Research as a special project of the Minneapolis FBI office and so began a tradition that has continued to this day, some twenty-six years later and, perhaps, close to seven thousand statues later (only to Special Agents, active and retired), it seems a story that will never end.
When President Reagan was shot by Hinkley in 1981, we immediately sculpted a “T-Man” taken right from the front pages of every newspaper in the nation showing a Treasury Agent (Secret Service) standing guard with the Uzi at the ready. This woke up agents in all the other Federal Agencies, like the Border Patrol (we now do their top Newton-Azrak Award), CIA, INS, ATF, US Marshals, DEA, US Customs and even the IRS. so now we regularly receive orders from Agents of all stipes; one would think we’re in deep trouble with the FBI calling us every day. We are now (in summer of 2011) sculpting a bust of Jamie Zapata, only the second Federal Agent to be killed in Mexico (Feb 2011), so believe us, we are involved deeply with our Law Enforcement friends who work for the Federal Government. We are retired law enforcement ourselves (city and county), but not allowed to combine one of our “Custom Cop” miniatures with a Federal Agent sculpture; the exception is the FBINAA graduate who (with the approval of the FBI which hosts the training at Quantico) can order his uniformed miniature with the now famous “G-Man” scultpure (only FBI Special Agents can order the FBI badge, of course).
Below, you’ll see just a sampling of things Federal, mounted this way and that, check it out and give us a call.
