Archive for Beaux-Arts
Nov
14
Hermon MacNeil and Hamlin Garland ~ ~ Connections Through the Years – Part 3
Posted by: | CommentsHermon MacNeil met Hamlin Garland in Chicago.
Hermon MacNeil
H. A. Mac Neil
Hermon MacNeil came to Chicago in 1891. Preliminary work was beginning on the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 (Chicago Worlds Fair). He brought with him a Letter of Introduction to Phillip Martiny, a gift from Augustus Saint Gaudens of New York City.
“Martiny was one of the large team of decorative sculptors assembled to carry out details for the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, where he settled for a year to carry out the clay models for many somewhat facile decorative allegorical figures, cherubs, caryatids and the like. … The sculptures, which were carried out in staff, a weather-resistant plaster, were destroyed with the exhibition buildings, but the successful effect they produced led to further similar commissions at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York (1901) and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St Louis (1904). His growing reputation led to his only medal, an award medal for the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia.” [4] Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Martiny
“So MacNeil chose to settle in Chicago where this collosal World’s Fair was “being born.” This decision proved momentous in many ways. In his ‘Chicago Years’ he met people who would remain professional colleagues and friends for the next four decades. These included Frederick MacMonnies, Lorado Taft, his pupil, Carol Louise Brooks (who MacNeil was to marry in 1895), Daniel Chester French, as well as architects Daniel Burnham, Stanford White, and Charles Follen McKim. The rest of MacNeil’s career would become a repeated succession of partnerships with these colleagues on projects, monuments, buildings, and memorials that were joint efforts of many Beaux Arts trained scupltors and architects associated with the American Academy in Rome.”The rest story has been told on this website at: “The Chicago Years” [CLICK HERE].
Fifty years later, Hermon MacNeil, revisited these “Chicago Years” when he wrote out his thirteen page Autobiography. Here’s what he wanted us to know:
“St. Gaudens was then the great sculptor in America and in my brash way [ I ] went to N. Y. City and asked him for a job, that is, the privilege of being an apprentice. He was kind enough to give me a letter to Philip Martiny, a very able sculptor who had considerable work at that time designing sculpture for the coming exposition in Chicago. He rather doubtfully took me on. At the end of the first week he asked me what I thought I should have for pay. I had had no professional experience so I told him to set my stipend. I would have taken $2 or $3 a day if he said so but he asked me if $5 would be enough! I don’t think I showed any disappointment in my face and told him that was O.K. (O.K. was not used in those days however) So for a year I revelled [sic] in assisting in the professional work and learned a great deal. Had in Paris learned to model the figure but in the studio to use intelligently and decoratively that knowledge was another thing again. As a friend of Martiny’s said to me when looking at my work, “Don’t you know their is a great difference between a school study and a work of art?” It sunk in.” [ “AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH — HERMON ATKINS MACNEIL,” June, 1943, page 4. ] Cornell University Archives.
Hamlin Garland
Garland Garland came to Chicago in 1893.
Teen Writer. “Garland began to write poetry during his teens and published his first poem in Harper’s Weekly called Lost in a Norther which announced his close connection with the adventurous American spirit and the pioneering life that would characterize a large part of his fiction.” [ https://mypoeticside.com/poets/hamlin-garland-poems ]
Keen Observer. “It wasn’t until Garland was in his early thirties though that he began to achieve some success with a collection of short stories under the title Main Travelled Roads. He used this success to move to Chicago where he gave lectures on writing in a more realistic way and later also visited the ‘untamed’ west where he observed cowboys and made copious books of notes on the life of American Indians. It was these keen character studies that he would use in his fiction in later years.” [ https://mypoeticside.com/poets/hamlin-garland-poems ]
Scene Novelist. When Garland moved to Chicago in 1893, he wanted to experience the events and excitement of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. He was already considered “a significant figure in the Chicago Literary Movement” and “one of Chicago’s most important authors”.[8] He wanted to both participate and witness this global, cultural symbol of the emerging American Exceptionalism. Garland contributed some of the featured 6,000 lectures. In doing so he became friendly “with Mark Twain, Walt Whitman and Rudyard Kipling, as well as Edward Eggleston, Joseph Kirkland and E.W. Howe.” [3]
The Woodlawn neighborhood sprung up to house the explosion of workers, businesses, and commerce necessary to construct the “White City” He settled in Woodlawn at 6427 South Greenwood Avenue, an apartment just six blocks south of the Midway and its amusements.
Community of Artists. The White City consisted of gleaming, white Beaux Arts structures blending Classical, Renaissance, Romanesque, and other styles. The sculptors, architects, and artists interacted in the creation of fourteen Great Buildings. The Halls were dedicated to themes, including Electricity, Liberal Arts, Machinery, Agriculture, Administration, Machinery, Mining, Transportation, Horticulture, Fisheries, Womens Hall, Forestry, US Government, and Court of Honor.
The White Rabbits. The story of Larado Taft and his female assistants, The White Rabblts, has been told many times here on this website. They did more than finish the works of their male sculptors counterparts.
The Rabbits weren’t just responsible for realizing other people’s visions; several of them also contributed their own sculptures to the fair. Scudder created an allegorical female Justice for the Illinois building as well as a sculpture for the pavilion of her home state, Indiana. Taft’s sister Zulime Garland made Flying Victory and Learning. Julia Bracken Wendt, who was already the most talented assistant in Taft’s studio before the fair, sculpted Faith; Charity was undertaken by Carrie Brooks MacNeil, Maternity by Ellen Copp, and “Art” by Bessie Potter Vonnoh.
Friendships and Romance. While creating the these buildings and sculptures, there evolved a unique community of White City artists. The collegiality extended through the years. Several friendships evolved into marriage. Both Garland and MacNeil found their life partners in Larado Taft”s assistants, The White Rabbits. A recurring community of Camp Life sprung up:
[1] “The spirit of playful camaraderie among the city’s artists was manifest in the first of several outings to Bass Lake, Indiana. For two weeks in August 1894 Potter experienced invigorating camp life with the sculptors Lorado Taft, Carrie Brooks, Hermon Atkins MacNeil, Lew Wall Moore, and Edward and Laura Swing Kemeys, And the painters Charles Francis Browne, Carl Heber, and Menthe Svenden. Between recreational activities and spirited antics, painters and sculptors alike engaged in plein-air oil sketching of the scenery. Evenings were given over to art lectures illustrated by the stereopticon projected on a make shift screen consisting of a sheet stretched between trees. Such a good time was had that the artist arranged another merry outing for September. There after the excursions became annual events.”
[1] Julie Aronson, Bessie Potter Vonnoh: Sculptor of Women, Cincinnati Art Museum: Ohio University Press; Athens, Ohio. 2008, p. 31.
TWO MARRIAGES:
Hermon MacNeil married Carol (Carrie) Brooks a student of Larado Taft, and Hamlin Garland married Zulime Taft, sister of Larado.
They all built The White City, BUT the White City sculpted their lives as well.
SOURCES:
- [1] Julie Aronson, Bessie Potter Vonnoh: Sculptor of Women, Cincinnati Art Museum: Ohio University Press; Athens, Ohio. 2008, p. 31.
- Jamaicia Plain Historical Society [ https://www.jphs.org/people/2005/4/14/hamlin-garland-one-of-the-great-literary-pioneers-of-america.html ]
RELATED POSTS:
- ~ ~ ~ “The Most Happy Young Man I Know” ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Hermon A. MacNeil ~ Success & Marriage! (13) 1895 Hermon Atkins MacNeil, American Sculptor (1866-1947) MacNeil’s bronze of…
- “PRIMITIVE INDIAN MUSIC” ~ Part 3: 1894 Eda Lord’s Ticket to the Chicago World’s Fair (13) Eda Lord, (the woman who purchased the MacNeil bronze statue,…
- Hermon MacNeil at the 1893 Columbian Exposition ~ ~ ~ THE CHICAGO YEARS ~ ~ (11) CHICAGO YEARS: Partners and Colleagues When Hermon MacNeil came home to the…
- Mary Lawrence: A Sculptor of “The White Rabbits” (10) Mary Lawrence was a talented sculptor. All that is left…
- Part 1: “The Primitive Chant to the Great Spirit” Hermon A. MacNeil~Sculptor of the American West (8) Hermon MacNeil’s interest in Native American culture began in (of…
Sep
12
I had the privilege of visiting the MAM site this week and will post a larger story soon. For now, here’s a quick shot of MacNeil’s “Sun Vow”.
Here’s a quick shot of MacNeil’s “Sun Vow” with yours truly camera in hand.
I had the privilege of visiting the MAM site this week and will post a larger story soon. For now, here’s an editorial by Frank Gerard Godlewski, Historian & NY Armory Arts Week Curator
It demonstrates a strong strain of public opinion in Montclair, NJ, concerning the “Sun Vow” a gift of Wm T. Evans. Montclair citizens have viewed and driven by this MacNeil original for over 100 years. What follows below is a re-posting of a Patch Montclair facebook page: ( https://patch.com/new-jersey/montclair/respecting-sun-vow )
Montclair Op-Ed: ‘Respecting The Sun Vow’
Regarding the Montclair Art Museum’s landscape re development proposal for the Planning Board Meeting Monday August 26 at 7:30 PM
| Updated
This post was contributed by a community member.
Aug
21
Montclair Art Museum (NJ) Planning to Move MacNeil’s “Sun Vow”
Posted by: | Comments
A grounds renovation at the Montclair Art Museum could result in the removal of the bronze Sun Vow which has been at the entrance since 1914. Plans include a reflecting pond with a newly-commissioned sculpture.
Credit: DEBORAH ANN TRIPOLDI/STAFF [Source: Montclair Local News 2019/7/03 ]
The Monclair Local contains an article by Jaimie Julia Winters titled, “Sculpture Removal, Tree Loss Concerns Raised with Outdoor Expansion”
Winters states:
Plans to upgrade the grounds of the Montclair Art Museum have been met with criticism from the community and the township’s historic preservation consultant over alterations to the “cultural landscape,” tree removals and the relocation of the bronze statue by Hermon Atkins MacNeil located at the entrance since the museum opened in 1914.
The New Plan– [SOURCE: https://www.montclairlocal.news/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Screen-Shot-2019-06-28-at-1.03.25-PM-1.png/
A new reflecting pond is planned for the grassy area in front of the museum on S. Mountain Avenue. Plans also include removing the Sun Vow sculpture and place a new, yet-to-be-commissioned piece of art in the pond. The cypress tree located in the front, reportedly planted by Van Vleck, will also be removed.
The circular driveway connecting the parking lot to the turn-around area will be repaved with granite blocks. Handicapped parking spaces along the driveway will also be reconfigured.
(Architect Paul) Sionas told the Historic Preservation Commission that original plans for the museum called for a reflecting pool and referred to a rendering dating back to 1915 of the museum front with people in top hats and with the statue in the middle of a reflecting pool.
The website has been contacted by “a group of concerned Montclair residents who want the sculpture to remain in its original location.”
Kathleen Bennett, chair of the Montclair Historic Preservation Commission, stated:
I am writing to you concerning the copy the Montclair Art Museum (NJ) of the “Sun Vow” which was given to the Montclair Art Museum when it opened in 1914. The donor was Mr. William T. Evans, who (we are told) commissioned the first copy for the front lawn of his mansion in Montclair in 1903. He gifted it to the Montclair Museum where it held pride-of-place until now. The board of the museum now want to move the sculpture to another location, as yet unknown, and replace it with a “contemporary” sculpture. We are a group of concerned Montclair residents who want the sculpture to remain in its original location.
“We feel that to move the sculpture from the front of the museum completely negates the original donor’s intentions.”
William Evans donated the Sun Vow bronze statue, which sits on a rock outside the main entrance of MAM. Bronze statues are typically duplicated in full-size. Famous works such as the Sun Vow have been reproduced in both half size and even quarter size replicas. A half-size Sun Vow (seen below) exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (cast in 1919). The original full-size “Sun Vow” graces the Chicago Institute of Art (cast in 1901). The first-copy of the original may be on the move at MAM.
The “Sun Vow” by H. A. MacNeil graces the courtyard of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. This copy was cast in half-size later in 1919.
“Sun Vow” by Hermon MacNeil at the Art Institute of Chicago cast in 1901. [Photo by Dan Leininger, webmaster, www.HermonAtkinsMacNeil.com ]
The MAM First copy of the “Sun Vow” is older than any other except the Art Institute of Chicago. It is a historic piece in the world of art and the history of Montclair Art Museum (MAM)Note BELOW the antique book plate put out be The Montclair Art Association: (date unknown).
P.S.
Kathleen Bennett praise this website by saying: “Your website is extremely informative about Hermon Atkins MacNeil and I hope you will add Montclair’s “Sun Vow” to the site.”
Thanks Kathleen.
Here is Part One.
More to come … Stay tuned to https://hermonatkinsmacneil.com
Daniel Neil Leininger
webmaster
Mar
05
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:
-
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.]
Feb
26
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.
May
25
Hermon MacNeil in Paris ~ Ecole de Beaux Arts where he studied.
Posted by: | Comments- Hermon MacNeil spent the summer of 1888 and the years of 1889-91 studying in Paris. The following video shares some of the recent restoration of the Ecole de Beaux Arts. This video tells the part of Ralph Lauren and company as benefactors to this world class seat of painting and sculpture.
Palais des Estudes in 2005 BEFORE restorations
Following photos are credited to Dan Leininger, webmaster, from a tour of France in May 2015
Palais des Etudes in 2015 AFTER the restorations.
The inscription above the statues reads as follows “This monument begun under Louis XVIII, was completed in 1837 By Louis-Philippe”
The year 1836 marks the beginning of the Hemicycle below.
The Hemicycle of the Ecole Des Beaux-Arts, C.1836-41 was also brought back to life in the recent restorations. The original work was by Delaroche, Hippolyte (Paul) (1797-1856); French. Medium: oil on paper glued on canvas. Date: 19th Century. Les grands maitres autour d’Apelle, Ictinos et Phidias; 70 artists from antiquity to time of Louis XIV; architects and sculptors of the Parthenon; Provenance: Musee des Beaux-Arts, Paris France
