Archive for Sculptures
Mary Lawrence: A Sculptor of “The White Rabbits”
Posted by: | CommentsMary Lawrence was a talented sculptor. All that is left of her work in the 1893 World’s Fair are the pictures, as depicted below.
“Christopher Columbus” by Mary Lawrence at the World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893, Chicago, Illinois
She became one of The White Rabbits along with Carol (Carrie) Brooks (MacNeil) and numerous other “women assistants” to Lorado Taft and other male sculptors. They helped create “the White City” as the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair was known. 1 The material was temporary, made of staff plaster, and modeled on wooden and medal frameworks. The elegance of the White City inspired
Lawrence was a pupil of Augustus Saint Gaudens at the Art Students League of New York for five years. In that period, she proved her skills many times over.
In the Chicago exhibition, her work with the White Rabbits was overpowered by an accomplishment central to the Court of Honor.
Saint Gaudens’ recommended that she create the theme statue of the exposition, namely, the monumental center-piece of Christopher Columbus. 1 This work was to be placed in the Court of Honor at the entrance of the Administration Building.
Frank Millet, who served as Director of Decorations, resented that a woman “had been selected, and seemed to bear her some personal animus as well.” 2 Seeing the piece put on such a prominent place, he ordered her to move the statue to the plaza of the railroad station. Lawrence complied even though Charles F. McKim, architect for Exposition, had told to place the work at that location. His authority to do so was second only to Daniel Burnham, the Chief Coordinating Architect.
She approached McKim a second time to tell him of the change. He had the statue returned to the Court of Honor at the Administration Building entrance. McKim worked with Augustus Saint Gaudens on many projects. He was introduced to Mary Lawrence by Saint Gaudens as they collaborated in New York on early plans for the Exposition in Chicago.
Though McKim was twenty years senior to Mary Lawrence, Bruce Wilkinson describes their relationship in this way:
“Her good looks and high spirits made her popular with the young and the not so young. Charles Follen McKim, whose second wife had died tragically after one short idyllic year, fell in love with her and remained a little so all the rest of his crowded life.”
Kim, Burnham, and especially, Lorado Taft were open to women as students and sculptors. Their show of support in the White Rabbitsdecision advanced opportunities for women for years to come.
Janet Scudder (1869-1940) was one of Taft’s students who described her own the joy filled elation and that of her White-Rabbit-sisters in the following way:
“Janet describes working under Loredo as “That wonderful year! Filled with work, filled with accomplishment and filled with what was considered in those days a very fat salary!”[2] The salary was so large that, upon being paid, “We rushed back to our rooms at the hotel, opened the envelopes and poured out the five-dollar bills (for some reason we were paid our hundred and fifty dollars in five-dollar bills,) and carpeted the floor with them. We wanted to see what it felt like to walk on money.” [3] 3
The Joy of the “White Rabbits” changed their lives and the future of sculpture.
Women and men working on figures for the East entrance to the Horticulture Building in Taft’s section of the World’s Columbian Exposition. Chicago History Museum Images. SOURCE: [ At: https://discoverherstory.wordpress.com/2018/01/08/white-rabbits-american-women-sculptors/ on March 1, 2019.]
Footnotes:
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White City
Most of the buildings of the fair were designed in the neoclassical architecture style. The area at the Court of Honor was known as The White City. Façades were made not of stone, but of a mixture of plaster, cement, and jute fiber called staff, which was painted white, giving the buildings their “gleam”. Architecture critics derided the structures as “decorated sheds”. The buildings were clad in white stucco, which, in comparison to the tenements of Chicago, seemed illuminated. It was also called the White City because of the extensive use of street lights, which made the boulevards and buildings usable at night. - Bruce Wilkinson, Uncommon Clay: The Life and Works of Augustus Saint Gaudens. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, Orlando, Florida, 1985, p. 249
- Ibid.
- Janet Scudder: “White Rabbits: American Women Sculptors”. [ At: https://discoverherstory.wordpress.com/2018/01/08/white-rabbits-american-women-sculptors/ on March 1, 2019.]
I never met Hermon MacNeil.
I never met my maternal grandfather, Tom Henry McNeil.
ALL OF LIFE and our family histories are filled with people we HAVE NEVER MET.
In 2014 I wrote an article for the MacNeil Clan Magazine,
The Galley.
I include the the pages and the text of that article below in this post:
The photos can also be viewed in this previous post.
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- Page 1
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- Page 2
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- Page 3
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- Ezra Cornell statue at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY was dedicated in 1918 after WWI.
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- Geo Rogers Clark, Confederate Defenders, Lawyer Abe Lincoln, General George Washington
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- Dwight Moody, WWI Monument – Flushing NY; Portland – Chief Multnomah – Coming of the White Man.
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- US Supreme Court Building
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- Images of Dan Leiningers article in the Galley of Spring/ Summer 2014
Hermon Atkins MacNeil – American Sculptor – (1866-1947)
MacNeil Clan history, like all family history, is filled with people we have never met. One MacNeil who has always fascinated me is Hermon Atkins MacNeil. Researching “Uncle” Hermon has also led me to another amazing man, Robert Lister MacNeil. Both men were present when the Clan MacNeil Association was formed ninety-three years ago.
MacNeil kinsman.
On May 26, 1921, the Clan MacNeil Association of America was organized in New York City. Central to that moment were Robert Lister MacNeil, (The MacNeil of Barra – 45th Chief of the Clan), and Hermon Atkins MacNeil, a sculptor, who served as the clan’s first president. At that time, Robert Lister was 32 years of age, a practicing architect in New York City, and a veteran of the First World War. He had succeeded to the chiefship of the Clan MacNeil just six years earlier. His dreams of the Isle of Barra and restoring Kisimul Castle (as told in his book The Castle in the Sea) were but faint hopes that would await decades and the efforts of many MacNeils for their accomplishment.
Dan “Neil” Leininger in a MacNeil kilt at Kisimul Castle, Isle of Barra, Scotland 2014. WHAT A TOUR it was!!!
His other kinsman was Hermon Atkins MacNeil. Hermon was the older of the two, an accomplished sculptor, also practicing in New York City, he had already created a myriad of statues, sculptures, monuments, as well as, the U.S. Standing Liberty Quarter first minted in 1916. Although these two MacNeils were 23 years apart in age, they were both trained in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, a school for architects and sculptors in the Classic Greco-Roman styles. A lasting bond between them formed through their shared artistic talents, professional skills, and years of Clan MacNeil activity.
Hermon MacNeil designed a bronze plaque that was unveiled and dedicated on May 28, 1928 on the campus of Flora MacDonald College in Red Springs, NC. The plaque commemorated the 1735 landing of Neil MacNeil of Jura, Scotland with 350 followers. This group made up mostly of clan members landed at the Cape Fear Settlement in North Carolina. The plaque was placed on a red granite stone and marked another clan project shared by these two men.
In his later years, Robert Lister stated: “Hermon was an outstanding sculptor and one of my dearest friends all the rest of his life.” In 1970, six years after publishing those words, Robert Lister MacNeil died at the age of 81. Twenty-three years earlier (in 1947), Hermon Atkins MacNeil had died, also at the same age of 81. All of the above was discovered as I “searched for Uncle Hermon.” I never met either of these two MacNeil men. The more I learn of them both, the more striking I find the parallels in their lives.
MacNeil roots. The third MacNeil man that I never met was my own grandfather, Tom Henry McNeil (1860-1932). Whenever my mother spoke of her father or of her “Uncle Hermon,” I would see a certain smile on her face and a sparkle in her eye. Emotionally, recalling her McNeil memories seemed to take her to “a very pleasant place.” On the MacNeil family tree, her father and Hermon MacNeil were first cousins. But “Uncle Hermon” was what the whole family always called him and what he always considered himself to be. Though she did not share them often, my mother’s stories instilled in me a sense of “wonder” about these two “MacNeil” men.
Genetically, my mother gave all of us six children her MacNeil biology, but when I first realized that my parents also gave me the middle name of “Neil,” I felt some extra portion of my Scottish ancestry. That feeling has only grown as I get older. My grandfather McNeil died before I was born. I was just two years old when Hermon MacNeil died. Now as an old man myself this MacNeil heritage and my memories of the sparkle in mother’s eyes have expanded my interest in these three MacNeils, and in the many other MacNeils that I have yet to meet.
MacNeil pursuits. So I am pursuing my MacNeil Clan interests in several ways. In 2010 I formally began searching for “Uncle Hermon” by building a “digital gallery” of the life and work as a sculptor. I built HermonAtkinsMacNeil.com, a website dedicated to making his sculpture and career available to the world. A web search of the name “Hermon MacNeil” will take you there. His sculptures, statues, monuments are scattered from Washington, DC to Portland, Oregon, and from New York City to Gallup, New Mexico. Now this virtual gallery features over 500 photos and 125 stories of Hermon MacNeil’s life and work. There you can see his statues of George Washington from Washington Arch, NYC; Ezra Cornell at Cornell University, William McKinley at Columbus, Ohio; Abraham Lincoln at Champaign, Illinois; Pony Express at St. Joseph, Missouri; Pere Marquette in Chicago; and monuments in Philadelphia, Charleston, Albany, and Flushing, and dozens of other cities.
In 2013 I became a member of the Clan MacNeil Association of America. I did not know its existence until I saw the 1928 news story of the MacNeil plaque dedication in Red Springs. For the last three yearsI have shared “MacNeil stories” at our annual family reunion of my siblings and our children and grand children. In August 2013 I went to my first Highland Festival. My nephew in Colorado told me about the attended the Longs Peak Scottish Irish Highland Fest in Estes Park. What a great celebration of Celtic pride and heritage.
Donna and I have booked our spots on the 2014 MacNeil Clan Tour of Scotland. We reserved our passage before I received the Fall/Winter issue of The Galley with Rory MacNeil’s invitation to the World Gathering of the Clan MacNeil on the Isle of Barra from August 4-7, 2014. We hope to meet some of you there this summer.
- I joined Clan MacNeil Association I have attended the 2013 Estes Park Highland Fest
- I have booked spots for Donna and I on the 2014 MacNeil Clan Tour of Scotland
- I continue to research HAM
Happy 153rd Birthday~ Hermon Atkins MacNeil ~ February 27, 2019
Posted by: | CommentsTODAY marks the 153rd anniversary of the birth
of Hermon Atkins MacNeil
Hermon A. MacNeil Commemorative sketched by Artist Charles D. Daughtrey as the seventh work in his Series of Coin Designers is available at http://www.cdaughtrey.com/
AND THE 10th Year of my Search for “Uncle Hermon”
for whom this website is dedicated.
For a brief summary of his life and work click here for => A Brief Bio of Hermon Atkins MacNeil
This website also is inspired by the memory of my mother, Ollie McNeil Leininger.
I remember my mother telling me about her “Uncle Hermon.”
She handed me some “Liberty Standing Quarters” from her grocery change and showed me the little “M” at the left foot of Lady Liberty.
She showed me “The Sun Vow” statue in the Saint Louis Art Museum. We also visited “The Pony Express” statue 
in St. Joseph, Missouri. I grew up with a sense of pride and quiet fascination with mom’s “Uncle Hermon”
I never met “Uncle Hermon”
Hermon A. MacNeil died on October 2, 1947 at the age of 81 years, 7 months, and 8 days. On the day that he died I was just two years-old.
To read the whole article, Click and open in a separate window
My own Mother died years later in the winter of 1985. At that time, I wrote:
With her passing a warm, safe feeling faded from my world. I was the “baby” of her six children. Her death ushered in feelings of being a midlife orphan who would soon turn forty. Darkness seemed to creep in from the far corners of my life. A strange fearful child inside of me said, “Who will take care of me now?”
As the years passed, I would think of mom, and occasionally, of her “Uncle Hermon.”
By the turn of the 2K millennium, computers and the internet had become household items. This allowed people to hunt, find, and save data. I found fascinating stories about Hermon Atkins MacNeil. Virtually anything from anywhere could be researched.
In 2010, I met Dan DeBlock. He is a retired Army Chaplain and Lutheran Minister who builds websites for churches. It started as a hobby interest and became Leiturgia Communications, Inc. The Host and Tech Support for this website.
One day I asked Dan DeBlock, “Could a website be built as virtual gallery of the sculpture of Hermon Atkins MacNeil?”
Nine years and 170 stories later, “HermonAtkinsMacNeil.com” is the answer to my question and Dan’s hosting.
In that year (2010), I seriously began my “Searching for Uncle Hermon.”
That journey continues. This is story # 171 – A Birthday Present for Hermon Atkins MacNeil.
This Gallery celebrates Hermon Atkins MacNeil, American sculptor of the Beaux Arts School.
MacNeil Postcard ~~ Feb 27, 2018 ~~ Hermon MacNeil Birthday #152
Posted by: | CommentsThis Feb 27th of 2018 marks the 152 Anniversary of the birth of HERMON ATKINS MacNEIL. We celebrate with a little MacNeil history.
American sculptor of hundreds of pieces and monuments all over this country, 1st President of the Clan MacNeil Association of America,
Eight years ago this website started gathering the many images and stories associated with his life and work. The Clan name traces back to to the Island of Barra in the Western Hebrides of Scotland.
The Kisimul Castle in Castle Bay was restored by the MacNeil of Barra XLV –Robert Lister MacNeil. The story of the Clan and the Castle are told in his book, Castle in the Sea: The Macneil of Barra XLV, published in 1964. His son Ian Roderick Macneil, Chief, Clan Macneil, published a revised 2nd edition 1975.
The Kisimul Castle is featured in cameo on this postcard “The Macneil” by Raphael Tuck and Sons. (Publishers to their Majesties the King and Queen) as part of their series “SCOTTISH CLANS.” Series VI; Postcard 9481.
The reverse of this never used postcard contains a Clan history of the two branches of the MacNeils:
No Date is found on the Postcard
MacNeil Chief greets visitors arriving to the Kisimul Castle for the 2014 Gathering of the MacNeil Clan.
The 2014 Gathering of the Clan was celebrated at the Castle and across Barra. I had the priviledge to attend the festivities and to tour Scotland for three weeks with Donna, my wife. It was a memorable trip of a lifetime and an inauguration of our retirement years. 
Webmaster, Daniel Neil Leininger in kilt at Kisimul Castle in the summer of 2014.
Will this “Confederate Defender” stay Standing?
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What is the future of this statue?
“Confederate Defender of
Charleston?”
Given the recent violence around Confederate monuments,
And the removal of others
one must wonder.
How long will this pair point out to
Fort Sumter Bay?
Since 1932 if this monument has stood in
Charleston harbor at Battery Park.
Twice it has been vandalized with spray paint.
In separate news: At the University of Texas – Austin, Confederate statues have been removed. University President Greg Fenves said in a statement that it has become clear “that Confederate monuments have become symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-Nazism.” (USA Today, Aug 22, 2017)
Is the sun setting on this piece by Hermon MacNeil?
only time will tell…
Hermon A. MacNeil’s words at the dedication:
“Its motif in brief, is that the stalwart youth, standing in front with sword and shield, symbolizes by his attitude the defense not only of the fort, but also of the fair city behind the fort in which are his most prized possessions, wife and family. And she, the wife, glorified into an Athena-like woman, unafraid, stands behind him with arms outstretched toward the fort, this creating an inseparable union of the city and Fort Sumter.”
“BLACK LIVES MATER. THIS IS THE PROBLEM RACISM”. SOURCE: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/statue-honoring-confederacy-defaced-charleston-park-article-1.2266043
MacNeil’s “Confederate Defenders” was completed as a studio model in 1931. This is is an autographed photo of the model of Confederate Defenders of Charleston Monument pictured in MacNeil’s studio in College Point, NY before completion of the full bronze sculpture as dedicated on October 20, 1932
“THE CAUSE FOR WHICH THEY FOUGHT THE CAUSE OF SLAVERY WAS WRONG.” SOURCE: The Blaze ( http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/07/11/charleston-confederate-monument-vandalized-again-this-time-with-obama-quote/ )
Can America as a nation get beyond the “birthmark of slavery” present throughout our founding, our history, our civil war, our Jim Crow apartheid, our Civil Rights violence, our ongoing racial prejudice, ethnic discrimination, black voter suppression, and claims of racial supremacy?
The answer is up to us.
“The cause for which they fought,
the cause of slavery was wrong.”
President Barack Obama ~ Eulogy for Rev. Pickney, Pastor of Emanuel AME Church 1.5 miles North of this statue
An excerpt From President Barack Obama’s
FAREWELL ADDRESS
January 10, 2017
“I am asking you to hold fast to that faith written into our founding documents; that idea whispered by slaves and abolitionists; that spirit sung by immigrants and homesteaders and those who marched for justice; that creed reaffirmed by those who planted flags from foreign battlefields to the surface of the moon; a creed at the core of every American whose story is not yet written; Yes we can.”
“BLACK LIVES MATER. // THIS IS THE PROBLEM #RACISM”. http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/06/21/21/29D7C09E00000578-3133597-Confederate_monument_vandalized-a-58_1434918039434.jpg
The Post and Courier ~ Charleston, SC
- “Reactions positive to Charleston mayor’s plan to add historical context to Confederate-era monuments”
- Updated
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South Carolina lawmakers say Confederate monuments will stay in place despite calls for their removal
( Edit this Post )
Lincoln Hall Revisited ~ 2017~ 6 year Nose Check-up!
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July 21, 2011. The restored bust on display at the Spurlock Museum at University of Illinois. After a thorough cleaning and patina restoration, MacNeil’s Lincoln bust went on public display for one year in the Spurlock Museum. This was the first showing of the piece in full circle — 360 degree visibility.
MacNeil’s Abe Lincoln (above) was cleaned and the patina restored in 2011 when Lincoln Hall was reconstructed for its 100th Anniversary.
After six years back in his old niche in the east foyer entrance of beautiful Lincoln Hall, I was curious about how much wear Lincoln’s “lucky nose” had sustained from student caresses on their way to exams and classes.
So, while traveling to visit family in Kentucky, Virginia, and NC in July 2017, we made opportunity to spend the night in Urbana, Illinois. We turned very appropriately onto “Lincoln Street” off of I-74 and found a motel for the night.
The next morning (Monday, July 31st) we ventured off toward the restored Lincoln Hall on the University of Illinois campus. Wiggling through blocks of summer street construction into Wright Street, we parked and walked toward the Main Quad.
Larado Taft’s Alma Mater
Lorado Taft’s powerful allegorical grouping “Alma Mater” (with Learning and Labor) at the corner of Eighth and Wright Street greeted us. (Taft was the alumnus who recommended MacNeil’s bust of Lincoln over other artists considered for placement in the Hall in 1924.) For More on Taft click HERE
We met an alumnae who had dropped her son off for summer workshops. She asked us to take her picture with the Alma Mater behind her. Turned out she was originally from Beresford, SD and planned to retire in the Black Hills. Small world.
Abe Lincoln’s nose has a well worn shine again. The patina restoration in 2011 has given way to the”petting” and “well wishes of 100’s of hands” seeking blessings from Old Honest Abe.
We walked into the old quadrangle at the center of campus. Walking the brick walks of the lush green lawn. we arrived at the east entrance of Lincoln Hall. We stopped to admire the terra-cotta bas-relief panels placed above the high windows of the building. They depict scenes from the life of the prairie lawyer memorialized in this beautiful hall.
The restored East Foyer of Lincoln Hall with its gilded vaulted ceiling and columns makes a dramatic setting for Hermon A. MacNeil’s bust of Abraham Lincoln as the famed prairie lawyer who left Illinois to lead the nation through the War to preserve the Union and the succession South states.
Entering the East Foyer, we could see the Lincoln bust before us. The magnificent Beaux Arts style of the ceiling formed a vaulted arch spanning above the wings of the white marble stairs and landing. This splendidly restored foyer dominated the life-size bust of our sixteenth President centered on the landing in its gold-leafed niche.
The tradition of touching Lincoln’s nose for “good luck” has passed on to another generation of Illini students since the restoration.
Even from the doorway a “bronze glow” could be glimpsed on Abe Lincoln’s nose. He was wearing his well-worn shine again. As predicted, the brown patina of the 2011 restoration had given way to the”petting” and “well wishes of 100’s of hands” seeking blessings from Old Honest Abe. The tradition has carried on to Lincoln Hall’s second century.
The bronze relief plaque containing the words of the Address at Gettysburg was on our right. The gold gilding of the column capitals and the rosettes in the vaulted arch of the ceiling, gave an inspiring elegance to this hall of remembrance.
In the elegance of this hallowed hall, Abe’s “accessible nose” adds a tactile legacy and fitting tribute to learning in the “Land of Lincoln.”
