Archive for Manuelito
- 1895
- Hermon Atkins MacNeil, American Sculptor (1866-1947)
- MacNeil’s bronze of Blackpipe, a Sioux warrior he befriended in 1893 (source Smithsonian Archives)
December of 1895 was an exciting time in the life of Hermon A. MacNeil — A time when he was described as “the most happy young man I know.”
Chicago. In fact, 1985, in general, had been a productive year for the sculptor. Following the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, times had been tough for both artists and Fair workers. MacNeil had found Black Pipe, (the Sioux from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show), cold and hungry on the streets of Chicago. He took him in as studio help and a model for future sculptures.
Marquette. During 1895, Hermon had completed the four bronze panels depicting the life of Fr. Jacques (Père) Marquette. They were put in place over the four entry doors of the Marquette Building (CLICK HERE) where he and his artist friend, Charles F. Browne, shared a studio.
- Panel 4 – “The de Profundis was intoned ..
According to information from the MacArthur Foundation (current owner and curator of the Marquette Building), Amy Aldis Bradley wrote in 1895 to Peter Brooks:
After commissioning MacNeil for the exterior bronzes, Aldis wrote to Peter Brooks, “McNeil’s [sic] panels are being placed in position. It is greatly to their and his credit that these bas-reliefs have won for him the Roman [Reinhart] Fellowship. The Commission, choosing him as the best of the very young men…The young sculptor was married on Christmas Day, and sailed for Rome on Wednesday, and is, on the whole, the most happy young man I know. He is very grateful to the owners of the Marquette Building.” (http://marquette.macfound.org/slide/herman-macneil/ )
Rinehart Prize. In December, he received news that he had been named as recipient of the Rinehart Roman Scholarship for study in Rome. Newspapers such as the Nov. 25, 1895 Chicago Tribune (CLICK HERE), and the Dec. 22, 1895 -New York Sun, (CLICK HERE) (columns 5 & 6), contained the news of the selection of this 29 year-old western artist to receive the Prix Rome.
- H.A.MacNeil ~1895 sketch – The Sun (New York City)
The sculptors on the committee that selected MacNeil for the award were the ‘giants’ among American sculptors of the 19th century. As mentioned in the above newspapers, the Rinehart Roman committee included Augustus Saint Gaudens, John Quincy Adams Ward, and Daniel Chester French.
These famous sculptors were in the prime of their careers. Saint Gaudens, at 47, had been the sculptural advisor for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. One tradition suggests that MacNeil asked Saint Gaudens for a letter of reference to Phillip Martiny that got him work on the that Exposition in 1893. John Quincy Adams Ward, at age 65 was the ‘grandfather’ of American sculptors, and the founder as well as standing president of the National Sculpture Society. Daniel Chester French, age 45, was also a founding member of the National Sculpture Society, and sculpted the colossal sixty-foot golden “Republic” centerpiece statue for the Chicago Fair. ( A thirty foot tall miniature golden replica of which still graces Jackson Park in Chicago today.)
Marriage:
On Christmas Day 1895, in Chicago, he married Carol Louise Brooks, also a sculptor. Earlier MacNeil was informed that he had won the Rinehart Roman Scholarship. Following their wedding, the pair left for Rome, passing three years there (1896-1899) and eventually spend a fourth year in Paris where their first son, Claude, was born. During those years they study together under the same masters and live on the shared income of Hermon’s Rinehart Scholarship. (Carol had also studied sculpture with both Lorado Taft and Frederick William MacMonnies and been a member of “The White Rabbits” ~ a self christened group of women sculptors called in to complete the massive work load of ‘staff’ statues needed for the Chicago Fair in 1893. ).
Future:
Other events from 1895 would later unfold into sculpture-opportunities for Hermon MacNeil. In May in Greenwich Village, New York City, Stanford White, with assistance from both Frederick MacMonnies and Phillip Martiny, completed a permanent Washington Arch.
,- 1895 photo of Empty pedestals on the new Washington Arch with New Yorkers strolling into the popular park. The skyline includes Judson Memorial Church tower to the right of the Arch. NYC Citizens would wait more than twenty years before the MacNeil and Calder tributes to George Washington as Commander-in-Chief and as President would be commissioned and put in place in 1916 and 1918. (Photo credit: NYC -Architecture.com: ~ http://nyc-architecture.com/GV/GV046WashingtonSquareArch.htm)
The first one, made in 1889 of paper and wood, commemorated the centennial of the inauguration of George Washington. Received with great popularity, the citizens of NYC demanded a permanent Arch monument for their first President. White’s design was dedicated on May 4, 1895 with two empty pedestals, meant for statues of Washington. These niches on the north face of the monument remained empty for almost two decades before MacNeil’s statue of Washington as Commander-in-Chief would fill one pedestal (east side, in 1916), and Alexander Stirling Calder’s statue of Washington as Statesman would fill the other (west side, in 1918).
Update ~ Chief Manuelito ~ The Return!
Posted by: | CommentsGOOD NEWS ! SURPRISE ~ Chief Manuelito is back!
Yesterday’s post about MacNeil and Manuelito generated considerable interest and news from Gallup, NM.
Carolyn Milligan saw our Native American Day story and responded:
“The restored Manuelito has been installed. Early tomorrow I’ll see and visit him. There are a few details to conclude but I will send you images of the restoration. Manuelito['s] dignity and presence have been skillfully restored. You will be pleased with the result.” … Give me a few days to reply to you and to send you images of Manuelito installed in his new location. You will then have before and after images of Manuelito to include on your website.
Artist Julian Scott's portrait of Manuelito‑ Chief of the Navajos [Source: americangallery.wordpress.com
Harrison Lapahle’s website offers a brief history of Manuelito. He describes the warrior’s closing years with a sorrow and painful candor that recalls the similar sorrow of his Navajo Nation.
“He spent the last ten years of his life unhappy, certain that he had done the wrong thing by encouraging education, and by taking back all the livestock stolen by the young raiders of the tribe. Whisky was small comfort for his misery, but he drank it anyway. All around him his people still believed his words “Education is the ladder,” and they sent more and more of their children to school. They followed Manuelito even though he refused to lead them any longer.
A delegation of Navajo representatives who traveled to Washington, D.C., in 1874 to discuss the provisions of the 1868 treaty with President Ulysses S. Grant. The delegation consisted of (left to right, front row): Carnero Mucho, Mariano, Juanita (Manuelito's wife), Manuelito, Manuelito Segundo, and Tiene-su-se Standing: "Wild" Hank Sharp (Anglo), Ganado Mucho, Barbas Hueros, Agent Arny, Kentucky Mountain Bill (Anglo), Cabra Negra, Cayatanita, Narbona Primero, and Jesus Arviso, interpreter.
He was a disheartened man, seventy-five years old in 1893, when he became very ill. Measles and then pneumonia brought the weakened old man to his deathbed.
In his fever, the years seemed to fade as he watched the sunlight play in small patches on the hogan wall. He saw the faces around him, his friends and family. He thought he heard Zarcillos Largos say, “Come, on the path of beauty you will restore your strength.” Manuelito closed his eyes in peace.
His death saddened many Navajos who had found strength in his strength. But his life had given his people a new trail to follow, and they walked it proudly, as Manuelito had walked.” [ http://www.lapahie.com/manuelito.cfm ]
A wonderful surprise! We await the return of the Chief to Gallup.
Seeing Chief Manuelito with his ‘dignity’ back, will prepare us all for the 21st Century.
Uncle Hermon would smile.
Chief Manuelito – and “Native American Day” in South Dakota
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"Moqui Runner", "Prayer for Rain"
"A Primitive Chant"
A MacNeil "Sun Vow"
"A Chief of the Multnomah"
Chief Manuelito of the Navajo sculpted by Hermon A. MacNeil in 1895 two years after the Chief's death at age 75.
This topic seems a strange fit for a website devoted to the art of Hermon Atkins MacNeil, an American Sculptor of the 19th and 20th centuries, born in Massachuesetts of Scottish descendents.
Please, bear with me briefly while I take you on a journey toward today’s Native American Day story.
STEP ONE: An arrogant sense of Manifest Destiny often accompanied many 19th and 20th Century concepts of American culture, history, and pride. An inescapable irony in our own 21st Century, is that Hermon MacNeil and many of his contemporary sculptors placed many Native American images at the center stage of the historical and allegorical sculptures of World Fairs from 1890 to 1915. That is quite visible throughout this website. I am beginning to find that MacNeil’s embrace of Native American themes in his sculpting, especially from 1895-1905, still offers us lessons more than a century later in understanding culture, anthropology and life values.
STEP TWO: Today is Native American Day in South Dakota, my home for the last 31 years. I understand that California is the only other state celebrating a Native American Day. “In 1989 the South Dakota legislature unanimously passed legislation proposed by Governor George S. Mickelson to proclaim 1990 as the “Year of Reconciliation” between Native Americans and whites, to change Columbus Day to Native American Day and to make Martin Luther King’s birthday into a state holiday. Since 1990 the second Monday in October has been celebrated as Native American Day in South Dakota.” [ Wikipedia: Native American Day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_Day ] In April 1993, Governor George Mickelson, a friendly giant of a man, and eight civic leaders were killed in a tragic plane crash in Iowa. His death was a great loss to this state and to hopes of Reconciliation. We still observe the day, even if it is in a subdued fashion.
STEP THREE: I am Daniel Neil Leininger, founding webmaster of HermonAtkinsMacNeil.com. I am a Caucasian descendant of Scottish German stock. My maternal grandfather. Thomas Henry McNeil (1860-1932), was a cousin to Hermon Atkins MacNeil (1866-1947). My mother, Ollie McNeil Leininger, always called Hermon MacNeil her “Uncle Hermon.” My middle name, Neil, was my mother’s gift. It reminds me of my heritage.
STEP FOUR: In researching the sculpture of MacNeil in recent years, I have developed a growing sense of “historical irony” in his placement of Native American images to symbolize the vitality of American expansion westward through his cultural era of Manifest Destiny. His choice moves against the strong current of self-absorption in contemporary cultures, both his and ours.
MacNeil's sculpture design for the Award Medals at the Pan American Exhibitition, Buffalo, NY 1901 (reverse). Note the shields with South and North American continents
EXAMPLES 1-5: See photos above:
EXAMPLE 6: MacNeil made a Pan American Exhibition Award Medallion with an indigenous North American and an indigenous South American sharing a Peace Pipe. Probably a corrupted mix of Native images, but it is a allegory, a visually symbolic representation carrying a larger meaning.
THE STORY OF MacNEIL and CHIEF MANUELITO:
MacNeil never met Chief Manuelito. Two years after his death, MacNeil made a statue of him using only a photograph supplied by trader C. N. Cotton. The year was 1895. Thirty years earlier, Manuelito had survived the “scorched-earth” missions of the U.S. Army under Gen. James H. Carleton and Col. Kit Carson, the “Long Walk” (a 320 mile forced march of men women and children through the deserts) to Bosque Rodondo, and the imprisonment of Native peoples there for four years.
Navajo Chief Manuelito - taken between 1868 and his death in 1893. He was a war Chief of the 1860. (photo Credit: ASU- Denver Public Library).
MacNeil made the statue tribute out of available materials. He built a wooden frame, a wire mesh surface and sculpted cement around it forming an eight foot two inch tall image of the Chief wrapped in a bright native blanket. His techniques seem to mirror the many ‘staff plaster’ statues he made for the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair. He was visiting the southwest that summer with friends Hamlin Garland (writer) and C.F. Browne (artist) to experience the vanishing Native culture at the urging od E. E. Ayers and others.
As the story goes, after he finished he asked Cotton if the piece was acceptable. Cotton left and brought in a group of older Native women to enter the canvas enclosure where MacNeil had setup a open-air studio workshop. After much weeping, the women, one of whom was Manuelito’s wife, came out obviously moved by the experience of being with the piece.
See my previous stories on Manuelito and MacNeil, and MacNeil’s two friends, Hamlin Garland and C.F. Browne.
Edward E. Ayers was the benefactor of the three artists who urged them to make the trip. A former member of the First California Cavalry Volunteers of the U.S. Army in AZ during the Civil War and the Native American oppressions of the 1860s,Ayers was stationed at the Cerro Colorado Silver Mine (now a ghost town) south of Tuscon in Pima County AZ. He was in charge of 14 men who guarded the silver mine from robbers. While there he happened on a copy of William H. Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico placed there by the mine’s owner Col. Samuel Colt, of revolver-fame. Ayers devoured the book repeatedly and began his life-long insatiable interest in Native American literature, manuscripts, and culture. He became an American business magnate, who is “best remembered for the endowments of his substantial collections of books and original manuscripts from Native American and colonial-era history and ethnology, which were donated to the Newberry Library and Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.” [ Wikipedia ] (Editors Note: Ayers passion for understanding and preserving Native American culture continues into the 21st Century through the legacy of his estate now bequeathed to Newberry Library, Field Museum and related archieves.)
One hundred years after MacNeil make the trip and completed the piece, Joe Di Gregorio, (Gallup businessman and grocer), stepped in to rescue the Manuelito statue. It was badly needing repair and being stored in a warehouse going up for sale. Leslie Linchicum of the Albuquerque Journal relays this account in her March 2010 story:
“Longtime Gallup grocer Joe Di Gregorio and his wife, Christine, own the statue. They took custody after the building’s owner, in negotiations to sell to an out-of state buyer in 1983, turned to Di Gregorio and whispered, “Don’t let the bastards take the Indian.” Di Gregorio didn’t. He agreed to take custody of Manuelito and promised to keep him in Gallup.” ["Navajo Leader Stands Tall" Albuquerque Journal, March 11, 2010]
Now 116 years after MacNeil’s visit, McKinley County Fine Arts Commission in Gallup, NM is restoring the nearly 9 foot fragile artwork that MacNeil built in an outdoor tent. “Carolyn Milligan, chairwoman of the … Commission, has estimated that it will cost $25,000 to $38,000 to restore the sculpture, which has deteriorated from a hundred years of rail yard soot, showers with a fire hose and a well-meaning but inept repainting.”
Milligan continues, “The 1,000-pound piece is fragile, …. Wherever it stands, she said, it will probably attract crowds.” “It’s really quite a commanding piece,” Milligan said. “And it’s for the people.”
BEST WORDS OF THE DAY: “Don’t let the bastards take the Indian.” MacNeil and Manuelito would probably smile to hear those words. While virtually all of the ‘staff plaster’ sculptures of the World Fairs have crumbled to dust, Manuelito still stands tall.
After all, he does belong to the people, centuries of people, both Native and otherwise.
THAT’s WHY I BELIEVE THAT: MacNeil’s embrace of Native American themes in his sculpting from 1895-1905 still offers us lessons in culture, anthropology and life values for the 21st Century.
MORE HISTORY:
1.) For further irony read my previous stories of the making of Hermon MacNeil’s 1895 sculpture representing Chief Manuelito of the Navajo or read history of this Chief of the Navajo starting here.
2.) William Wroth’s “Long Walk” to Bosque Redondo also provides poignant insight into this period of the United States management of Native American peoples and the life of Chief Manuelito who was part of that “Long Walk” and signed the treaty of 1868 that sought to restore Navajo lands after the disastrous interventions of the US government.
3.) “The Long Walk” A Ten (10) Part video story of the Navajo “Fearing Time” accounting atrocities against the Navajo people from 1863 to 1868. Researched and produced with support of the George S. and Delores Dore’ Eccles Foundation and the Pacific Mountain Network. Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8; Part 9; Part 10.
4.) “The Long Walk” For a Navajo perspective view this video by Nanebah, whose great-great grandmother survived “The Long Walk”.
5.) “300 Miles – Or Long Walk Of The Navajo – Richard Stepp” For a musical tribute with an ‘American Indian Movement’ perspective.
6.) Leslie Linthicum, staff writer for the Albuquerque Journal, gives a delightful article, “Navajo Leader Stands Tall”. It offers historical irony from our 21st Century on attitudes toward Native American culture through her story of the ‘management’ and ‘preservation’ of MacNeil’s iconic statue of Chief Manuelito.
Related posts:
- 1901 Pan-American Exposition – Buffalo, New York ~~ “The Rainbow City” (10.3)
- MacNeil Sculpture “Meets Me in St. Louis” (20)
- Expositions and World’s Fairs ~ Hermon A. MacNeil (15.6)
- MacNeil at the 1893 Columbian Exposition ~ ~ ~ THE CHICAGO YEARS ~ ~ (10.8)
- http://hermonatkinsmacneil.com/2011/03/26/1904-louisiana-purchase-exposition-saint-louis-worlds-fair/
Pan American Exposition Medal ~~~ 110 Years of Prized Beauty
Posted by: | CommentsImages of Hermon A. MacNeil’s sculpted medallion for the 1901 World’s Fair are as coveted today as they were 110 years ago. Here are three examples:
EXAMPLE #1 from 2010.
Below, a recent You Tube posting shares a trio of MacNeil’s beautiful Medals in Bronze, Silver and Gilt finishes. Thanks to Will of the American Association of Young Numismatists (AAYN) [See note #1 below], for making this video of these rare MacNeil medallions. Thanks as well, to website contributor and friend, Gibson Shell of Kansas City for his alert eye in finding this first beautiful example.
Mellin's Food Company of Boston, a maker of 'baby formua', touts their wars with the MacNeil image at center stage of their ad. "Baby formula' was a radically new idea in 1901. Their product had to compete with mother's breast milk, an already accepted product with a much longer history. The Gold Medal from the Pan American Exposition gave their new product a greater recognition for quality and acceptance.
EXAMPLE #2 from 1901.
Manufacturers were so proud of winning the Gold Medal at the Pan American Exhibition that they displayed it prominently on their advertisements. Here in the ad below, the Mellin Food Company of Boston, a maker of ‘baby formula’, touts their wares with the MacNeil image at center stage of their ad. “Baby formula’ was a radically new idea in 1901. Their product had to compete with mother’s breast milk, an already accepted product with a much longer history. The Gold Medal from the Pan American Exposition gave their new product a greater recognition for quality and acceptance.
EXAMPLE #3 from 1901.
Here is another Gold Medal winner. F. R. Pierson a horticulturist operating a nursery and greenhouse at Tarrytown-on-Hudson, N.Y., won Eight Gold Medals at the 1901 Buffalo World’s Fair. His advertisement states that this is, “the largest number awarded any firm on the Flori-culture Department.” The ad enumerates the company’s prize-winning selections of Rhododendrons, evergreens, roses, cannas, bay trees, fig-leaf palms and hydrangeas. AND of course it bears MacNeil’s Pan American Exposition Medallion prominently at the top corners of the advertisement. [CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE]
CLICK TO ENLARGE - The W. R. Pierson Company's advertisement offers another example of the esteem with which manufacturers and businesses held the Gold Medal competitions over a century ago.
MACNEIL’S MEDALS
These MacNeil sculpture medals were made by the Gorham Manufacturing Company of Boston, a quality producer of fine silver since 1832.
CLOSE UP VIEWS.
Pictured below are near-life-size images of Hermon A. MacNeil’s sculpture design for the Award Medals at the Pan American Exposition, held at Buffalo, NY in 1901. All award medals were struck from the same design whether in Bronze, Silver or Gold. These below are silver medals.
MacNeil's sculpture design for the Award Medals at the Pan American Exposition, Buffalo, NY 1901 (front)
MacNeil's sculpture design for the Award Medals at the Pan American Exposition, Buffalo, NY 1901 (reverse). All award medals were struck from the same design whether in Bronze, silver or gold. These are silver medals.
“PHYSICAL LIBERTY” 1904.
The buffalo image on the Obverse face of this medallion bears a resemblance to a MacNeil work he made three years later. That larger-than-life sculpture at the 1904 World’s Fair in Saint Louis, Missouri was known as “Physical Liberty” (see below). It stood at the top of the Cascade at that Exposition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase. Ironically, MacNeil’s allegorical figure used Native American images to symbolize the vitality of American expansion westward.
HISTORICAL IRONY?
A near arrogant sense of Manifest Destiny often accompanied such 19th Century concepts of American pride. An inescapable irony today, in our own 21st Century, is that MacNeil and many of his contemporary sculptors placed such Native American images at the center stage of these World Fairs. MacNeil’s embrace of Native American themes in his sculpting from 1895-1905 still offers us lessons in culture, anthropology and life values more than a century later.
MORE HISTORY:
1.) For further irony read my previous stories of the making of Hermon MacNeil’s 1895 sculpture representing Chief Manuelito of the Navajo or read history of this Chief of the Navajo starting here.
2.) William Wroth’s “Long Walk” to Bosque Redondo also provides poignant insight into this period of the United States management of Native American peoples and the life of Chief Manuelito who was part of that “Long Walk” and signed the treaty of 1868 that sought to restore Navajo lands after the disastrous interventions of the US government.
3.) “The Long Walk” A Ten (10) Part video story of the Navajo “Fearing Time” accounting atrocities against the Navajo people from 1863 to 1868. Researched and produced with support of the George S. and Delores Dore’ Eccles Foundation and the Pacific Mountain Network. Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8; Part 9; Part 10.
4.) “The Long Walk” For a Navajo perspective view this video by Nanebah, whose great-great grandmother survived “The Long Walk”.
5.) “300 Miles – Or Long Walk Of The Navajo – Richard Stepp” For a musical tribute with an ‘American Indian Movement’ perspective.
6.) Leslie Linthicum, staff writer for the Albuquerque Journal, gives a delightful article, “Navajo Leader Stands Tall”. It offers historical irony from our 21st Century on attitudes toward Native American culture through her story of the ‘management’ and ‘preservation’ of MacNeil’s iconic statue of Chief Manuelito.
NOTE #1:
The American Association of Young Numismatists (AAYN) is an association dedicated to educating and impassioning young people about the hobby of coin collecting. We hope our videos help spark your interest in numismatics.
Trio of 1901 Pan American Exposition Medals: Bronze, Gilt and Silver This video discusses a trio of beautiful 1901 Pan American Exposition medals, manufactued by Gorham Co. You will find over 75 videos the AAYN Video Library on You Tube.
Related posts:
- 1901 Pan-American Exposition – Buffalo, New York ~~ “The Rainbow City” (10.3)
- MacNeil Sculpture “Meets Me in St. Louis” (20)
- Expositions and World’s Fairs ~ Hermon A. MacNeil (15.6)
- MacNeil at the 1893 Columbian Exposition ~ ~ ~ THE CHICAGO YEARS ~ ~ (10.8)
- http://hermonatkinsmacneil.com/2011/03/26/1904-louisiana-purchase-exposition-saint-louis-worlds-fair/
MacNeil’s ‘Chief Manuelito’ Honored
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- MacNeil’s “Chief Manuelito” will soon be placed in honor at McKinley County Courthouse. [2010 Gallup Independent/ Cable Hoover]
In July, the statue’s owner, Joe DiGregiorio, met with McKinley County Commissioners and told them that he wanted to give the statue to the county because “of its importance to the history of Gallup.”
According to Carolyn Milligan (chair of the McKinley County Fine Arts Committee) the MacNeil “Chief Manuelito” statue has survived a century of weathering, several paintings and a variety of repairs. The piece has been moved temporarily to Santa Fe for professional restoration. Milligan chaired the committee that recommended that the county commission recieve Joe DiGregiorio’s gift and restore the art piece properly. She informed me recently of the following:
MacNeil had made it one summer around the turn of the century when he was “doing the West,” for the Santa Fe Railroad. Old Man Cotton, an Indian trader, came in and wanted to talk to the sculptor. He showed Hermon a photograph of Manuelito (who had just died) and asked if he could work from it. Macneil said “of course.” He called Mr. Cotton in when he had finished, asking it the sculpture was OK. He said he would see. He let a Navajo woman into the room and closed the door. She came out a few minutes later, crying, Macneil said Cotton said it was OK ( the woman was Manuelito’s widow). http://www.gallupindependent.com/2007/june/062807gbda_gl%5Blndmrkchfmn.html
Bill Donovan, a correspondent for the Gallup Independent, tells us that the Chief Manuelito statue has greeted gallup citizens from his glass enclosure on the front of the Old Cotton Warehouse (Zanios Foods) north of the Sante Fe Railroad track for several decades.
The statue’s historical and cultural importance is evident to Zanios’ manager, Martin Romine: “He’s right outside of my office,” said Martin Romine, manager of Zanios. “People like to come and tell their children and grandchildren about Chief Manuelito. We have lots of chairs in the lobby and the public is welcome. The hours we are open are 8-5 on Monday through Friday, 8-4 on Saturday, and Zanios is closed Sunday. There are information posters on the wall around the sculpture, explaining the history of the building and the art piece.
An “icon” can be defined as an object of great attention and devotion, an image, a representation or picture of a sacred or sanctified personage. Clearly, the “Chief Manuelito” has become a cultural focal point and gathering place for teaching heritage to generations of residents and visitors of the Gallup community.
We believe that Hermon A. MacNeil would be proud that his efforts have been so influential and inspiring over a century later.
MacNeil Statue of Chief Manuelito Being Restored
Posted by: | CommentsProfessor Carolyn Milligan has informed us that the 115 year old statue of Navajo Chief Manuelito will again be on public display in Gallup New Mexico. Sculpted by Hermon Atkins MacNeil in 1895, the 8 foot, 3 inch likeness of the respected Navajo warrior and leader has become a gathering point of cultural pride for citizens and visitors alike. We were recently contacted by Carolyn Milligan, Associate Professor Emeritus, UNM in Gallup, NM, who is the Chair of the McKinley County Fine Arts Committee. She writes:
“Our large sculpture is currently in Santa Fe undergoing a much-needed restoration. I have seen interim reports of the conservation process and plan to visit the work in progress this coming Thursday. Manuelito will soon reside in our new courthouse annex overlooking the plaza.” She further states, “I am contacting you because last year I recommended the County accept a gift from a local businessman who had offered a monumental sculpture of the historic Navajo warrior and later tribal leader, Manuelito. Hermon Atkins MacNeil created this posthumous memorial to Manuelito, commissioned by C.N.Cotton, a wealthy trader with the Navajo, Hopi and Zuni people and who is credited with establishing the national market for Navajo weaving. In the summer of 1895 MacNeil traveled to the Southwest in search of more American Indians. (He found a lot more here than in Chicago!) It was during that trip that MacNeil met Cotton and created the sculpture which then resided in a high niche at the front of Cotton’s store. For a century Manuelito was the visual marker for all travelling on the train that they had arrived in Gallup.”
In July 2010, the McKinley County published a “Request for Proposals (RFP’s) No. 2010-24 for Conservation, Restoration, Including Consultation on Maintenance Plan Moving and Installing for Herman Atkins MacNeil’s CHIEF MANUELITO Sculpture, Gallup, New Mexico”. The proposal describes the sculpture as follows:
Chief Manuelito of the Navajo sculpted by H A MacNeil in 1895 . [Photo Credit: Jeff Jones/Independent/Gallup, NM, June 28, 2007
The sculpture is a larger than life, polychromed figure of Chief Manuelito (1818–1894), a respected Navajo warrior and leader. It is constructed of gypsum plaster over a wood and metal armature. It was created by Hermon Atkins MacNeil (1866–1947), a prominent sculptor, who created many cast bronze public monuments of historic figures in New York City, Chicago, and on the east pediment of the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C. MacNeil’s interest in Native American culture brought him to the Southwest as an artist commissioned by the railroad to produce artworks based upon the Native cultures of the Southwest. While in Gallup, MacNeil met C.N.Cotton, a prosperous Gallup trader, who is credited with creating the national market for Navajo rugs. Cotton and Manuelito had been friends. In 1895, (the year following Manuelito’s death from measles and pneumonia), Cotton commissioned MacNeil (and paid him in Navajo rugs) to create this dignified tribute to his friend Manuelito, shown draped in a chief blanket and wearing turquoise nuggets strung around his neck and suspended from his earlobes. The sculpture was planned for, and installed in a high niche on the east façade of the C.N.Cotton store and warehouse, an adobe building adjacent to the Santa Fe Railway tracks in downtown Gallup. For nearly a century the dignified figure of Manuelito was a familiar visual marker to all who traded with C.N. Cotton of his friendship with one of the Navajo’s most respected leaders but the figure also announced to those traveling from the east that they had arrived in Gallup, New Mexico.
