Costner sculpture dispute heads to SD high court

February 24, 2012 at 12:18p.m.

RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) — The South Dakota Supreme Court will hear a case involving Hollywood actor Kevin Costner and some bronze sculptures of bison and American Indians.

Justices will review a judge’s decision last summer that Costner did not breach a contract with South Dakota artist Peggy Detmers by placing the sculptures at his Tatanka attraction near Deadwood in 2006. Detmers challenged the ruling, and oral arguments are set for March 19 in Vermillion, the Rapid City Journal reported.

Costner filmed much of his Academy-Award-winning movie “Dances with Wolves” in South Dakota. He commissioned the sculptures in the early 1990s for his planned Dunbar resort in South Dakota’s Black Hills that still has not been built.

Costner paid Detmers $300,000 for the 17 sculptures. Detmers said she spent more than six years creating the artwork and gave Costner a price break because she anticipated selling smaller sculptures at the resort.

Circuit Judge Randall Macy ruled last July that Detmers indicated her approval of the Tatanka location by participating in the development of the site, the placing of the sculptures there and the opening ceremony. The Tatanka site houses the sculptures and a visitor center.

Detmers’ attorneys are focusing their appeal in part on whether the Tatanka location met the terms of the contract between Detmer and Costner.