Archive for June, 2024
~ Sculptor: Carol Brooks MacNeil died 80 years ago, June 22, 1944 ~
Posted by: | Comments~ Carol MacNeil died Eighty years ago today ~
Carol Brooks MacNeil died on June 22, 1944
in Jamacia (Queens) Hospital.
- Newspapers in New York and the Chicago Daily Times “all acknowledged her standing in the rarified realm of female sculptors.”
- Congregational services were held in the MacNeil home.
- Carol’s cremains were transported to the family plot in Massachusetts
- There in Woodlawn Cemetery she was interred beside their beloved daughter, Joie Katherine MacNeil.
Death of Carol “Carrie” Brooks MacNeil.
During her months of declining health, Carol was nursed at home by her family and Cecelia, a home nurse. As Carol’s condition worsened, the needs exceeded the home-care options of the day. She was admitted to the Jamaica (Queens) Hospital. Carol Brooks MacNeil died there on June 22, 1944. Newspapers in New York and the Chicago Daily Times “all acknowledged her standing in the rarefied realm of female sculptors.” Congregational services were held in the MacNeil home. Carol’s body was cremated and her remains transported to the family plot in Massachusetts at Woodlawn Cemetery to be interred with those of Joie.
“The 50 year Partnership
of
‘the Sculptors MacNeil’
had come to a close”
Hermon MacNeil Alone. Now Hermon must have felt an emptiness without Carol in his life, home, and studio. With Carol MacNeil’s death, their fifty-year partnership as the “Sculptors MacNeil” had ended. Their connection had begun five decades earlier in the “White City” of the Chicago World’s Fair, continued through their years of training in the city of Rome and in the city of Paris, matured in the kind-of-a-city of Queens, NY, and the not-quite-so-city of College Point.
For the next two years Hermon MacNeil continued to live alone in his College Point home. Next door was the stone Studio building where he and Carol had sculpted together through the years of their marriage. Now he was alone in their no-longer-shared home and studio.
Postcard of MacNeil studio in College Point. From the webmaster’s collection.
Cecelia Muench, RN, continued to care for him there. She had been his visiting nurse since 1941, when she helped him through a heart ailment. She also painted with Carrie and Hermon entering into the family of the sculptor her father had introduced her to at The Sun Vow on her 12 birthday.
A widow herself now, Cecelia accompanied Hermon to various gatherings of family, friends, and colleagues.
MEMORIES OF CAROL ~ Carrie
Carol Brooks MacNeil
Carol Brooks MacNeil
Related Images:
Early Hermon
THERE IS A “BLACK PIPE” Number #3
Probably later, he also made a full frontal relief.
MacNeil’s bronze of Blackpipe, a Sioux warrior he befriended in 1893/4 (source Smithsonian Archives)
Later, Black Pipe became the model for Primitive Indian Music.
Black Pipe #1 and Black Pipe #2 and the two earliest rondels of this Sioux Brave. SEE: PREVIOUS POST at:
MacNeil’s bronze of Blackpipe, a Sioux warrior he befriended in 1893/4.
Source:
Lot 3116: HERMON ATKINS MACNEIL (1866-1947) BAS RELIEF PORTRAIT Est: $3,800 USD – $4,200 USDPassed
Description
“The Sioux Brave Blackpipe Beneath the Bust”, bronze bas relief sculpture, with incised signature “Mac Neil” lower right, 22 1/2″ high, 12 3/4″ x 8 1/2″. Undisturbed surface, good condition.A well-known sculptor of Native Americans, MacNeil’s works include the designing of the medal of award for the 1915 Pan American Expo in San Francisco and the quarter dollar for the then US Governor. Some of his wares have sold for over $350,000.
Artist or Maker
