Archive for Statue

Will Rogers By Jo Davidson 1939. Jo started as Studio Boy for Hermon A MacNeil in 1903 for $10 per week.
Jo Davidson was the “studio boy” for Hermon Atkins MacNeil in 1903.
Since 1939, Jo Davidson’s statue of
“Will Rogers”
has looked down on Senators and Congress members as they speak and are interviewed in the Capitol Statuary Hall.
Jo Davidson’s statue watched again today as raging Trump protestors turned into rioters (mixed with vigilantes) attacking the Capitol Building. [ breaking windows, carrying fire arms, vandalizing desks and offices, creating chaos and danger … ]
Senators were in the Constitutional process of certifying the votes of the Electoral College which authorizes the Inauguration of the 46th President on January 20, 2021.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
In February CHECK BACK HERE at HermonAtkinsMacNeil.com for FOUR stories of Hermon MacNeil and Jo Davidson
BUT NOW
listen instead to our prized political sage of
HUMOR from 100 years ago:
(Then tell me if Will Rogers still speaks to us in 2021.)
WILL ROGERS’ QUOTES
tell Us what he might say today:
- “Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” – Will Rogers
- “Never miss a good chance to shut up.” – Will Rogers
- “Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else.” – Will Rogers
- “I never met a man that I didn’t like.” – Will Rogers
- “Rumor travels faster, but it doesn’t stay put as long as truth.” – Will Rogers
- “Common sense ain’t common.” – Will Rogers
- “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today” – Will Rogers
- “The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.” – Will Rogers
- “Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.” – Will Rogers
- “Everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects.” – Will Rogers
- “Do the best you can, and don’t take life too serious.” – Will Rogers
- “When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging.” – Will Rogers
- “There are three kinds of men. The ones that learn by readin’. The few who learn by observation.
The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.” – Will Rogers - The minute you read something that you can’t understand, you can almost be sure that it was drawn up by a lawyer.” – Will Rogers
- “We can’t all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.” – Will Rogers
- “A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.” – Will Rogers
- “The short memories of the American voters is what keeps our politicians in office.” – Will Rogers
- “If pro is the opposite of con, what is the opposite of Congress?” – Will Rogers
- “If stupidity got us in this mess, how come it can’t get us out.” – Will Rogers
- “A fool and his money are soon elected.” – Will Rogers
- “I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.” – Will Rogers
- “I’m not a real movie star. I’ve still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago.” – Will Rogers
- “Always drink upstream from the herd.” – Will Rogers
- “The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.” – Will Rogers
- “If you want to be successful, it’s just this simple. Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing.” – Will Rogers
- “Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.” – Will Rogers
- “The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it in your back pocket.” – Will Rogers
- “The more you observe politics, the more you’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other.” – Will Rogers
- “Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know “why” I look this way. I’ve traveled a long way and some of the roads weren’t paved.” – Will Rogers
- “Ten men in our country could buy the whole world and ten million can’t buy enough to eat.” – Will Rogers
- “It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, but you can lose it in a minute.” – Will Rogers
- “An onion can make people cry, but there has never been a vegetable invented to make them laugh.” – Will Rogers
- “You know horses are smarter than people. You never heard of a horse going broke betting on people.” – Will Rogers
- “Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.” – Will Rogers
- “The difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.” – Will Rogers
- “I am not a member of any organized political party — I am a Democrat.” – Will Rogers
- “If you feel the urge, don’t be afraid to go on a wild goose chase. What do you think wild geese are for anyway?” – Will Rogers
- “The problem ain’t what people know. It’s what people know that ain’t so that’s the problem.” – Will Rogers
- “Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re actually paying for.” – Will Rogers
- “Buy land. They ain’t making any more of the stuff.” – Will Rogers
- “There are men running governments who shouldn’t be allowed to play with matches.” – Will Rogers
- “What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.” – Will Rogers
- “There is no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.” – Will Rogers
- “The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has.” – Will Rogers
- “Lord, the money we do spend on Government and it’s not one bit better than the government we got for one-third the money twenty years ago.”- Will Rogers
- “It is better for someone to think you’re a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” – Will Rogers
- “If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went.” – Will Rogers
- “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people that they don’t like.” – Will Rogers
- “There are two theories to arguing with a woman. Neither works.” – Will Rogers
- “All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that’s an alibi for my ignorance.” – Will Rogers
CREDITS:
- Photo: Will Rogers Statue https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/exhibitions/timeline/image/will-rogers-jo-davidson-1938
- Will Rogers Quotes: https://inspirationfeed.com/will-rogers-quotes/
MacNeil Christmas Cards
Posted by: | CommentsHermon MacNeil often made Christmas Cards that featured his own drawings and studio images.
Here’s a Card from 1922 ==>>
This pencil sketch proclaiming “Merry Christmas 1922” appears reminiscent of MacNeil’s “Sun Vow”
In that composition, a Native Chief, possibly Sioux, coaches a young warrior through a rite of passage — shooting an arrow into the of the sun.
In MacNeil’s 1922 Christmas drawing, a similar pair of figures wave a banner of seasons greetings. Their presence seems a reprise of the Sun Vow sculpture.
While that was over a century ago, here’s what we can know today:
- We know being an artist, MacNeil often carried and kept sketchbooks.
- We know he would sit in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair with his sketchbook.
- We know he sketched D. L Moody at an interdenominational Sunday Worship in Wild Bill’s Arena (since no Sunday shows were allowed and Moody rented the venue).
- We know he traveled, sketched and sculpted on his trip to the Southwest territories in 1895 (New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado).
- We know he formed clay and plaster images there; and he shipped many back to Chicago.
- We know that his memory of Native images dominated his sculptures for the next ten years.
I suspect that the idea for this card sprang up from the artist’s visual memory, perhaps, revived from an old sketchbook. A dusty record of images that he first saw three decades earlier at the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893.
Here’s More from this website:
“Native American Themes: His first introduction to native subjects came through Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. During the 1893 Worlds Fair, Buffalo Bill’s troupe performed in a carnival setting outside the main entrance. Fascinated, MacNeil’s artist-eye and imagination took every opportunity to see the show and sketch the ceremonies and rituals of Indian life — MacNeil often carried a sketch book. He latter befriended Black Pipe, a Sioux warrior from the show, who he found down-and-out on the Chicago streets after the carnival midways of the Fair had closed. MacNeil invited Black Pipe to model for him and assist in studio labors, which he did for over a year. Inspired by these native subjects and encouraged by Edward Everett Ayers, MacNeil found a respect for this vanishing Native culture and made subsequent trips to the southwest. When the Marquette Building was constructed, MacNeil was awarded a commission to complete Four Bas Relief Panels of over the main entrance. His work depicts four scenes from Marquette’s trip through the Great Lakes region.”
“In the summer of 1895, along with Hamlin Garland (a writer) and C. F. Browne (a painter), he traveled to the four-corners territories (now, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah) seeing American Indians (Navajo, and Moqui — now Hopi) in their changing cultural element on various reservations. While there, he was asked to sculpt, out of available materials, a likeness of Chief Manuelito. The Navajo warrior had died in despair after being imprisoned for four years as a renegade by the U. S. Government (Col. Kit Carson) twenty-five years earlier. Manuelito’s likeness (click here), made of available materials, brought tears to his widow’s eyes, and remains an object of cultural pride in Gallup, New Mexico to this day.” SOURCE: Click HERE
Hermon A. MacNeil’s statue of
General George Washington
(on the reverse of this historic Arch)
stands above this
Spontaneous crowds are celebrating the
ELECTION of 46th PRESIDENT of the United States,
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.
(The “Everyday JOE” candidate.)
& Kamala Harris
the first Woman Vice President
daughter of an Asian Indian Mother and a Jamacian Father,
Joyous New Yorkers flocked to the historic Washington Arch to dance and shout as Joe Biden was declared the next President-elect after four days of ballot counting.
It’s An American National Block Party
MacNeil’s statue portrays General George Washington in the uniform of the Continental Army of 1775. Also, on the back of the Arch is Alexander Sterling Calder’s accompanying statue of President Washington as 1st President and the first civilian Commander-in-Chief.
Celebrating Americans seem relieved that new leadership will deal with the following stresses of 2020:
- Political Vitriol
- COVID-19 PANDEMIC
- Black Lives Matter demonstrations.
- Weaponized Decision Folly
In June 2020 Vandals tossed
red paint
this MacNeil work
Both statues of George Washington suffered “red paint” vandalism during earlier demonstrations on June 29, 2020.
[ CLICK HERE for that Story ]
The accompanying “George Washington as President” statue by Alexander Sterling Calder was also damaged. They have since been cleaned. However, such vandalism takes a toll on these century old marble art monuments.
The Vandalism post:
Related posts:
- Presidents Day 2020 ~~ MacNeil Month ~~ Wm. McKinley ~~ Abe Lincoln ~~ Geo. Washington ~~ “THEY ARE ALL THERE” — H.A MacNeil’s Sculptures of 3 Presidents ~~ (10) “They are still there” celebrates several re-visits and discoveries of…
- Happy Birthday Mr. Washington! ~ PART ONE ~ MacNeil Month #5 ~ The President Who would NOT be King. (9) February 22nd marks the 279th Birthday of George Washington. February…
- Happy (actual) Birthday, Mr. Washington! ~~~ ~~~ Visit New York City for MacNeil Month ~~~ (#8) (9) George Washington February 22, 1732 Pictured below is Hermon A. …
- New York – Washington Square – Arch – (8) MacNeil’s “Washington at War” graces one side of the Arch…
- Washington Square – NYC – Fiction and Reality (8) Hermon A. MacNeil’s sculpture of George Washington on the Arch…
- Memorial Day Photo ~MacNeil’s “General George Washington” with flags (7)
The Hamlin Garland Memorial Highway ~
Brown County, South Dakota

Hamlin Garland https://mypoeticside.com/wp-content/uploads/gallery-images/e6845fc.jpeg
In June 1936, the Brown County Commissioners named a section of Brown County Highway 11, for a total of 10 miles, the “Hamlin Garland Memorial Highway.” This section travels past the homestead of Garland’s father, Richard, who homesteaded in 1881. In 1998, new signs were placed along this stretch of paved road noting the name of the highway.
[ Hamlin Garland Society of Aberdeen, SD http://www.garlandsociety.org/ ]
GARLAND TOWNSHIP–This township was named after Hamlin Garland, a novelist, who lived in this area with his pioneer parents, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Garland. The land south and west of Columbia [and Ordway] was immortalized by this writer in “Among the Corn Rows,” and “A Son of the Middle Border.”
Garland information on the web:

In 1895 HAMLIN GARLAND led Hermon MacNeil and Francis Brown to the four corners area (AZ, NM, CO, UT) to witness the Native American people and culture there.
-
Hamlin Garland Highway in South Dakota. [SOURCE: Information courtesy of Gene Aisenbrey ~ Hamlin Garland Society of Aberdeen, SD ~ Contact: garlandsociety@gmail.com Copyright © 2015 ]
- Hamlin Garland Biography (Wisconsin Authors and Their Works)
- A Biography of three pages
- One of Garland’s Grant Interviews with Julia Dent Grant (1826-1902) widow of General U. S. Grant
- SD Historical Society: “Hamlin Garland’s South Dakota: History and Story” https://www.sdhspress.com/journal/south-dakota-history-9-3/hamlin-garlands-dakota-history-and-story/vol-09-no-3-hamlin-garlands-dakota.pdf
- A brief Garland bio (Al Filreis)
~ A Poem by Hamlin Garland ~
“Do you fear the force of the wind,
The slash of the rain?
Go face them and fight them,
Be savage again.
Go hungry and cold like the wolf,
Go wade like the crane:
The palms of your hands will thicken,
The skin of your cheek will tan,
You’ll grow ragged and weary and swarthy,
But you’ll walk like a man!”
Their adventure in 1895 led into Native settlements in Colorado, Arizona (Moqui, Navajo), New Mexico, and Utah:
- Hamlin Garland, led the tour to the southwest in the summer of 1895. MacNeil & Browne wanted to gain direct experience of American Indians to inform their art. What the trio found reflected in their respective painting, sculpture and writing.
- MacNeil sculpted a cement statue of Chief Manuelito for trader C. N. Cotton under a tent in the dessert. His subsequent sculptures of Native Americans after that summer of 1895 continued his cultural interest. That fascination began with his friendship and sculpting of Black Pipe, the Sioux warrior. He first met Black Pipe at the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. The Sioux modeled for MacNeil and later worked in his studio for over a year before MacNeil’s trip with Garland.
- Charles Francis Browne was a painter and friend (his room mate in Paris) who accompanied Hermon MacNeil and the author.
- Edward Everett Ayers was an art patron to both MacNeil and Browne. He had been a Civil War Calvary officer stationed in the southwestern United States. He became a lumberman who made a fortune selling railroad ties and telephone poles. He urged MacNeil to travel to see the vanishing West of the American Indian. He became an arts benefactor whose art collections are now housed by the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as, the Newberry Library. His copy of MacNeil’s “Moqui Runner” still graces the Newberry Library.
Related Posts:
Dave Wiegers captures another “Lincoln Lawyer”
Posted by: | CommentsLincoln buff and talented amateur photographer David B. Wiegers sent us a photo of an additional “Lincoln Lawyer” bust by Hermon A. MacNeil.
This one makes its home in the Law Library at Pennsylvania University. Dave snapped these shots there recently.
The piece resides at the Law Library of the University of Pennsylvania. It is new to this website.
Eight of these busts were cast in about 1911 from a standing Lincoln piece that MacNeil sculpted in 1911.
Wiegers pairs (1.) his love of photography with (2.) a quest to travel to every Lincoln statue and monument in the 35 states he has visited in the last 15 years.
- See his story at: https://dbwiegers.zenfolio.com/about.html
- And view over 500 photos of his Lincoln Collection on the front end of his website: https://dbwiegers.zenfolio.com/
Not pictured on his website is his Boston Terrier, named “Lincoln.”
© Dave Wiegers Photography
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Penn Law Journal describes their “Lincoln Lawyer Bust” this way:
Opposite the front entrance, in full view straight ahead on the massive staircase leading up to the library from the Great Hall, stands a statue of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln, who led the most massive legal and political reform the United States has ever known, is a superb example of legal greatness as Lewis Hall has memorialized it-of revolution in the interest of tradition. For Lincoln avowedly fought to realize the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, even as he essentially restructured the legal landscape in the interests of fundamental justice.
The statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Great Hall, which faces the original entrance to the Law School, was immediately visible upon passing through the massive twin doors on 34th Street. The symbolic power of the statue, the role of Lincoln as martyr to resurrection of the righteousness of the American republic, gave students a tangible focus for legal greatness, a sense that lawyerly skills were integral to the discernment and sense of justice of the most heroic of all American presidents.
The Penn Law Journal of 2014 [Vol. 31, Iss. 2 [2014], Art. 1 ]
“Uncle Hermon would be Proud too.” dnl