Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts: Descriptive Notes on the Art of the Statuary at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San FranciscoJames, Juliet Helena Lumbard
History
Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts: Descriptive Notes on the Art of the Statuary at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco
James, Juliet Helena Lumbard
Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915 : San Francisco, Calif.); Sculpture
The man at the wheel in the management of all the works of sculpture at
the Panama-Pacific International Exposition has been A. Stirling Calder.
He was born at Philadelphia in 1870. Having studied four years at the
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, he had the advantage of two years in
Paris. For some time he has been connected with the Philadelphia School
of Industrial Arts. He is a man of splendid imagination, of dignified
and noble purpose, being one of the sincere men of his art who keeps the
standards where they should be. One of his early works, "The Man Cub,"
in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, is most original and
interesting in its treatment. It stands a most unique figure in the line
of sculpture. It is said that his "Martha W. Baldwin Memorial" is one of
the best designs for a figure and pedestal yet produced in America. Mr.
Calder lived some time in southern California and when there did the
sculptured work on the portico of Throop Polytechnic Institute of
Pasadena. This work was done by means of enormous castings made in fine
concrete. Mr. Calder originated this method and it will probably be the
means of revolutionizing the relief work done on many of the public
buildings in the future. Mr. Calder's rare intellectual fiber, added to
his accurate knowledge of his subjects, with his exalted outlook, has
placed him among the foremost American sculptors.
James Earle Fraser
James Earle Fraser was born at Winona, Minnesota, in 1876. His father
was a railroad constructor, so that the lad had a good chance in
traveling around the country to study the free types and life of the
West. Being very impressionable, he imbibed a great deal which he has
turned to good account in his chosen work. At fourteen he started to
carve figures from the chalk that conventionality required to be used on
blackboard problems. At eighteen he entered the Chicago Art Institute,
where he stayed for but three months. He soon went to Paris, going first
to the Beaux Arts and later to the Colorossi and Julian Academies. He
won many honors during his three years stay in Paris. In 1898 he won the
prize offered by the American Art Association in Paris for the best work
in sculpture. Augustus Saint-Gaudens was on the jury and immediately
became interested in the talented boy who later on held the place of
chief assistant in the Saint-Gaudens studio. He became instructor of the
Art Students' League of New York in 1906, holding the position until
1911. He it was who made the new five-cent piece design - the Indian
head on one side, the bison on the other. He is particularly interested
in personalities, having done a number of very clever portrait busts. It
is enough to look at the portrait bust of Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney's boy
to realize what he is able to do in the line of portraiture. He has
produced nothing finer in that line. He is a master of character
records.
Daniel Chester French
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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