Name/Title
Booklet, James Earle Fraser, American SculptorDescription
Gallery book for James Earle Fraser exhibition. This exhibition was held June 2 to July 3 1969 at the Kennedy Galleries, Inc., 20 East Sixth Street, New York, New York, 10022. We have two copies of this booklet.
James Earle Fraser
American Sculptor
Kennedy Galleries, Inc.
Twenty East Fifty Sixth Street
New York, New York 10022
JAMES EARLE FRASER EXHIBITION
PRICE LIST
Note: [This price list was glued to the inside of the front cover.]
Piece Size Price
1. Buffalo Nickel 4 ½" $1,500
2. Windswept (In the Wind) 5" 1,250
3. Storm Driven 16" 3,500
4. The End of the Trail (without spear) 12" 3,500
5. The End of the Trail (b) 18" 6,000
The End of the Trail © 34" 9,500
6. Indian Bust - White Eagle, 1919 14" 3,000
7. Indian Head - Two Moons 13" 3,000
8. Alexander Hamilton 39" 8,500
Alexander Hamilton 20" 4,500
9. Meriwether Lewis 30" 7,500
10. William Clark 30" 7,500
11. Theodore Roosevelt as a Rough Rider 22" 5,000
12. Augustus Saint-Gaudens 32" 7,500
13. Pioneer Woman 16" 3,500
14. Pioneer Woman, 1927 38" 8,500
15. Abraha
Extended Description: Gallery book for James Earle Fraser exhibition. This exhibition was held June 2 to July 3 1969 at the Kennedy Galleries, Inc., 20 East Sixth Street, New York, New York, 10022. We have two copies of this booklet.
James Earle Fraser
American Sculptor
Kennedy Galleries, Inc.
Twenty East Fifty Sixth Street
New York, New York 10022
JAMES EARLE FRASER EXHIBITION
PRICE LIST
Note: [This price list was glued to the inside of the front cover.]
Piece Size Price
1. Buffalo Nickel 4 ½" $1,500
2. Windswept (In the Wind) 5" 1,250
3. Storm Driven 16" 3,500
4. The End of the Trail (without spear) 12" 3,500
5. The End of the Trail (b) 18" 6,000
The End of the Trail © 34" 9,500
6. Indian Bust - White Eagle, 1919 14" 3,000
7. Indian Head - Two Moons 13" 3,000
8. Alexander Hamilton 39" 8,500
Alexander Hamilton 20" 4,500
9. Meriwether Lewis 30" 7,500
10. William Clark 30" 7,500
11. Theodore Roosevelt as a Rough Rider 22" 5,000
12. Augustus Saint-Gaudens 32" 7,500
13. Pioneer Woman 16" 3,500
14. Pioneer Woman, 1927 38" 8,500
15. Abraham Lincoln, 1930 29" 7,500
16. Abraham Lincoln, bust 27" 4,500
17. Abraham Lincoln, Study 12 ½" 3,000
18. The Buffalo Prayer 44" 9,500
19. Benjamin Franklin 10 ½" 2,500
20. Benjamin Franklin, Bust 8" 1,250
21. "Venus de Meow" Sleeping Cat 5 1/2" x 3,3/4" 650
22. Bear 6 ½" 950
23. Theodore Roosevelt with Gunbearers,(a) 24 ½" 8,500
Theodore Roosevelt with Gunbearers,(b) 12 ½" 4,500
24. Daniel Boone (a) 10" 2,500
Daniel Boone (b ) 32" 7,500
25. John James Audubon (a) 10" 2,500
John James Audubon (b) 30" 7,500
26. Meriwether Lewis (a) 10" 2,500
Meriwether Lewis (b) 32" 7,500
27. William Clark (a) 10" 2,500
William Clark (b) 31" 7,500
28. Albert Gallatin, 1947 42" 8,500
29. The Buffalo Herd (a) 6" x 18" 9,500
The Buffalo Herd (b) 13" x 38" 5,000
30. George Washington Equestrian 31" 7,500
KENNEDY GALLERIES, INC. 20 East Fifty Sixth Street, New York, N.Y. 10022
Prices as of -
James Earle Fraser -- American Sculptor
A Retrospective Exhibition of Bronzes from Works of 1913 to 1953
June 2nd, to July 3rd, 1969
Note: [This price list was folded and inserted into the booklet.]
1. 1,500.00
2. 1,250.00
3. 3,500.00
4. 3,500.00
5. a. 3,500.00
b. 6,000.00
c. 9,630.00
6. 3,000.00
7. 3,000.00
8. a. 8,500.00
b. 4,500.00
9. 7,500.00
10. 7,500.00
11. 5,000.00
12. 7,500.00
13. 3,500.00
14. 8,500.00
15. 7,500.00
16. 4,500.00
17. 3,000.00
18. 9,500.00
19. 2,500.00
20. 1,250.00
21. 650.00
22. 950.00
23. a. 8,500.00
b. 4,500.00
24. a. 2,500.00
b. 7,500.00
25. a. 2,500.00
b. 7,500.00
26. a. 2,500.00
b. 7,500.00
27. a. 2,500.00
b. 7,500.00
28. 8,500.00
29. a. 5,000.00
b. 9,500.00
30. 7,500.00
James Earle Fraser: American Sculptor
A Retrospective Exhibition of Bronzes from Works of 1913 to 1953
June 2nd, to July 3rd, 1969
Kennedy Galleries, Inc. 20 East Fifty Sixth Street New York, New York, 10022
2
Copyright 1969 by Kennedy Galleries, Inc.
The photograph on page 54 is reproduced by the courtesy of the Saint-Gaudens, National Historical Site, Windsor, Vermont.
The photograph on page 63 is reproduced by the courtesy of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Photographs on pages 52, 53, and pages 55 through 62 are reproduced courtesy of the Manuscripts Division, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York.
3
The bronzes listed in this catalogue have been made directly from the plaster models in James Earle Fraser's studio, under the supervision and authority of Syracuse University, by the Modern Art Foundry, Long Island, N.Y. All bronzes are limited to an edition of twelve numbered casts, with the exception of "The End of the Trail" nos. Four & Five which are limited to an edition of twenty-four, each. All bronzes are numbered and recorded with Syracuse University and the Kennedy Galleries Inc.
4
James Earle and Laura Gardin Fraser. Photo taken in their studio probably not long after their marriage in November 1913.
5
The late James Earle Fraser, whose statues are admired by millions, was a remarkably successful sculptor in every sense of the word but one - his name still remains largely unknown to the general public. Yet it was Fraser who created America's most popular statue, "The End of the Trail," and designed the Indian or "buffalo nickel," the first truly American coin. Even though Fraser never took the time to show his work in one-man exhibitions, it is of such enduring greatness and importance to his country that he will probably never be forgotten.
"I am ashamed," he once admitted "at the number of things I have done." But Fraser had nothing to be ashamed of and other artists used to smile wryly at such statements, perhaps even with a bit of envy, for he may well have received more commissions to create monumental public sculpture than any artist of his time. They knew how successful he had been in instilling a rugged and spirited Americanism in the Classical-Renaissance tradition that became so fashionable for public building after the turn of the century.
This quiet rather unassuming man was just as fascinating as the work he created. As a young boy he lived in a boxcar on the western prairie where he experienced the hazards of pioneer life. There he saw the great buffalo herds, Indians who were not yet completely "civilized," and felt the frantic alarm of Indian raids which he later captured so eloquently in his "Pioneer Woman."
Like Frederic Remington and Charles Russell, Fraser created many extraordinary sculptures drawn from pioneer life on America's vanishing frontier. Unfortunately these pieces remained in the relative obscurity of his studio during his lifetime and for more than a decade after his death. It was not until Syracuse University acquired the artistic contents of the Fraser estate in 1967 that the existence of some of his greatest work became known. Now they are being presented to the public for the first time with this exhibition and catalogue.
Martin H. Bush
Syracuse University
June, 1969
I
7
James Earle Fraser was born in Winona, Minnesota on November 4, 1876. He was the son of Thomas A. and Cora (West) Fraser. His paternal grandparents had come to Canada from Scotland, and lived there throughout their lives, mostly around Toronto. The sculptor's father was an engineer and railroad contractor, and before James Earle was a year old, his father moved the family to the Dakota Territory, to the small settlement of Mitchell. The young Fraser lived on the frontier until his early adolescence, and this experience was drawn upon for some of the most striking of his sculptures. From this early life came his most famous work 'The End of the Trail.' In later years he wrote a youthful admirer about the childhood that had been the source of this sculpture : 'A long time ago, when I was a small boy, younger than you are, I lived in the Indian country of Dakota, in the land that belonged to the Indians, and I saw them in their villages, crossing the prairies on their hunting expeditions. Often they stopped beside our ranch house; and camped and traded rabbits and other game for chickens. They seemed very happy until the order came to place them on reservations. One group after another was surrounded by soldiers and herded beyond the Missouri River. I realised that they were always being sent farther West, and I often heard my father say that the Indians would some day be pushed into the Pacific Ocean, and I think that accounted for my sympathetic feeling for them.' During his days on the Dakota prairie, Fraser also learned to carve figures and animals from the soft chalkstone quarried near his home.
During his later school days in Minneapolis, Fraser continued his interest in art. When the family moved to Chicago, he determined to study art in all seriousness, and to make it his life. There was, not unexpectedly, some family opposition to be overcome. Fraser recalled that 'at the time I started to study I was told carefully by my father that I might have many hungry moments, as art was not the most paying work to be selected, particularly if one did not reach the top.' Young James was determined but logical. 'I said that I thought it would be no worse to be a poor artist than an incompetent mechanic, cab driver, or any other profession. And he quite agreed.'
Fraser began his studies at the Art Institute of Chicago when he was fifteen. About this same time he entered the studio of Richard Bock in Chicago as a working student. It was an interesting place in which to work; in Bock's studio he met pioneer woman sculptor Harriet Hosmer, and made a portrait from life of Eugene V. Debs, just after the Pullman strike. At the time of the 1893 World's Fair, many important American sculptors and painters came to Chicago, which must have seemed the center of the world that particular year. Fraser also worked at home, and made portraits of members of his family, of family friends, and of an Irish laborer he met hauling coal in an alley. Inspired by the statues of Indians and cowboys he saw at the Chicago Fair, he made his first version of the famous 'End of the Trail' in 1894 (?).
8
At the age of twenty Fraser went to Paris to study. With him he took the head of the laborer, John Riley, and the 'End of the Trail.' He enrolled for formal studies at the ecole des Beaux Arts under Falguiere, and also studied at the Academie Colarossi. All of his studies in Paris were not academic; he cycled over much of the French countryside surrounding the capital, seeing cathedrals, castles and works of art. He spent a summer painting in Holland, and crossed the Alps into Italy. His prize winning exhibit at the American Art Association Exhibition in 1898 won him also an invitation from Augustus Saint-Gaudens to work in his studio. When Saint-Gaudens returned to the United States in 1900 to finish the statue of General Sherman now at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street in New York, Fraser came with him.
Fraser remained with Saint-Gaudens for two years before setting up on his own. He established a studio in McDougal Alley in Greenwich Village, where a number of other artists also had studios, among them Frederick E. Triebel, Martin Bush Brown, Daniel Chester French, George de Forest Brush, Blendon Campbell, Mrs. Payne [Gertrude Vanderbilt] Whitney, Chester Beach, Harry Thrasher and E. W. Deming.
A bas relief portrait of young Horatio Hathaway Brewster that Fraser made about the time he moved into his own studio attracted favorable notice, and from that time the sculptor was never without a portrait commission, until he turned to larger public commissions. Many of these early commissions were portraits of children, at which Fraser had great success. In 1905 Homer Saint-Gaudens wrote of these early efforts : 'Especially among his portraits of children, his frank and simple charm of accent serves to give to each a distinct little individuality. The fidelity of his lovable touch brings with it all the significance of spontaneous movement, as is shown in the bas relief of the son of Mr. David Ericson.' Other early children's portraits were of Flora and 'Sonny Boy' Whitney, Jack and Henrietta Deming, children of artist E. W. Deming, Payne Whitney, June Evans, Sage and John Goodwin, sons of Walter Goodwin, Hartford, Connecticut, and the children of George Pratt. Fraser made a number of medals at this early period, among them the prize winning Edison medal of 1906, and a group purchased by the Museum at Ghent, Belgium: Sculptor sculpting Pegasus, 'Old Man,' `Baby with Hands Up' (The Ericson child), Child with Ball, Young Girl, Portrait of a Child entitled 'Chicken.'
Fraser also made a number of portraits of adults during this early period. Among them are, two fellow artists of McDougal Alley, J. Eastman Chase and E. W. Deming, three heads of Indians later used for the study of the Buffalo nickel; Warren Delano; E. H. Harriman; Walter Goodwin; Dr. Louis Ledoux; Charles Dana Gibson (ca. 1918) Morris K. Jessup; Pat Ford; Mr. and Mrs. John Jacob Albright; Dr. William Polk, of the Cornell Medical Library; a commemorative plaque for M. H. Schoelkopf. Perhaps his most important early commission was for the marble bust of Theodore Roosevelt for the Senate Chamber, begun in 1906. From this commission followed not only other portraits of Roosevelt, but of men connected with him: Roger Bacon, Elihu Root (two different portraits) and later the William Howard Taft Memorial. Fraser's work was not confined to portraits; he designed sculptured ornaments for the Fine Arts Academy, Buffalo, New York, and also an ornamental vase for the City of Buffalo. For the garden of the E. H. Harriman house in Arden, New York, he designed a fountain with a classical figure playing with a tortoise and a panther. 'A Basque,' one of 'a series of studies of old men' he made about 1910, went to the Hispanic Society, New York.
9
For the Saint Louis World's Fair in 1904 he sculpted two heroic-sized statues - an equestrian `Cheyenne Warrior' and a seated Thomas Jefferson. Other imaginative, decorative, or allegorical early pieces were: Mary Garden as `Melisande'; another version of `Melisande'; 'Mask', now in the Chicago Art Institute; 'Grief ; 'The Awakening'; 'Dancer'; 'Young Artist,' (portrait of Olaf Olesen, later cut in marble from Milan Cathedral, and now in the Metropolitan Museum); `Priscilla,' head of a young girl; 'Aviator'; and 'Young America.' Fraser also designed a number of memorial pieces in this early period, among them the John Hay Memorial, Cleveland, Ohio; the Keep Memorial 'Journey Through Life,' Washington, D. C.; and the Bishop Potter Memorial, St. John the Divine, New York City. Fraser also taught sculpture at the Art Students' League in New York City, from 1907-1911.
Fraser's first important public statue was commissioned in 1917. This was the statue of Alexander Hamilton for the Treasury Building, Washington, D. C. Fraser had previously prepared models for other public competitions without success, for example a statue of Admiral McComb, a memorial to Grover Cleveland, and one to Francis Scott Key, and the 'Star-Spangled Banner.' Fraser's success with the Hamilton was due in part at least to the reputation acquired by his success at the Pacific Panama Exposition in 1915 with 'The End of the Trail,' and by the design for the Buffalo nickel in 1913. From the time of the Hamilton, Fraser was virtually never without a public commission in his studio. In the 1920's he designed two pylons, 'Discoverers,' and `Pioneers,' for the Chicago Memorial Bridge; the Elks Memorial in the same city; the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, Jefferson City, Missouri, with the figures of Jefferson, Lewis and Clark; the John Ericsson Memorial, Washington, D. C.; and the seated Lincoln for Jersey City, New Jersey. One unsuccessful sketch for a public statue in this period was his design for the tomb of the 'Unknown Soldier,' but it was one of the five final designs selected by judges. Not all of his commissions were in the United States. Two were in Canada - the 'Victory' for the Bank of Montreal, Montreal, and the 'Canadian Officer' in the Bank of Montreal, Winnipeg, both won in international competition. A memorial to the engineer of the Gaillard Cut in Panama was erected by his widow from Fraser's design, near the eastern entrance to the canal. On San Juan Hill, Santiago de Cuba, a memorial bust of Theodore Roosevelt by Fraser was dedicated in December 1924. Of Roosevelt alone, Fraser made a number of portraits. In addition to the 1906 bust for the Senate chamber, the artist copyrighted portraits of Roosevelt in 1910 and 1919. He made a bust of Roosevelt for the Roosevelt School, New Rochelle, New York in 1921. Two profile portraits of the president were used on medalions by Fraser: one the New York City Police medal, the other an award to be presented to New York City school children for essays. Fraser also designed two important private memorials about this time: the Taft memorial, and the sarcophogus for the family of Robert Todd Lincoln. For the Hall of Fame of Great Americans, New York City, he sculpted a bust of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and collaborated with Thomas Hudson Jones on a portrait of U. S. Grant. A statue of 'Primitive Power,' was placed in Niagara Falls, New York in 1929, and in the same year a large bronze of his 'End of the Trail,' was placed in Shaler Park, Waupan, (Waupun) Wisconsin.
10
The rate of commissions continued into the thirties. Fraser designed pediments for the Archives and the Commerce buildings in Washington D. C. Two large figures by him were placed in front of both the Archives and the Supreme Court Buildings. The 'Second Division Memorial', called also the 'Mons Sector Memorial,' was dedicated in 1936. A large marble Franklin for the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, and a portrait of Thomas Edison for the Edison Institute, Dearborn, Michigan were other works of this period. In 1938, Fraser modeled his second bust of a vice president for the Senate Chamber, this one of John Nance Garner. For the 1939 New York World's Fair, he designed a colossal sixty-five foot figure of George Washington. A bust of Washington and a plaque of an Indian also by Fraser decorated the State Reception Room at the Fair. Work on the New York State Memorial for Theodore Roosevelt at the American Museum of Natural History occupied him for much of the decade. It was finally dedicated in 1940.
With the beginning of World War I, all work on casting of commissions under progress in Fraser's studio came to a halt, and even supplies of plastilene for working models came in short supplies. In answer to an offer of some antique cannons to be melted down for casting, Fraser outlined the problems posed by the War : 'Thank you for your thought that I might be able to use some bronze cannon which you own. Unfortunately it wouldn't be enough to aid me greatly. My wants would be in tons rather than pounds, then again there are no moulders available. All the moulders of statues are doing war work.' Consequently a number of major commissions, such as the Albert Gallatin figure for the Treasury Building, Washington, D. C.; the Mayo Brothers Memorial for Rochester, Minnesota,; the Firestone Memorial for Akron, Ohio; and the two large groups for the Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington D. C. had to await the end of the war, and in some cases many years after, to be cast. After the war, Fraser did a small number of further commissions: two statues of George F. Patton, one for West Point and one for Boston; a seated Benjamin Franklin for the Franklin Life Insurance Company, Springfield, Illinois, and a bas relief of E. H. Harriman for the Boy's Club in New York City after his earlier portrait. In evidence of his generous interest in the state where he spent much of his boyhood, Fraser designed a plaque, rather like the buffalo on the buffalo nickel, for the Hot Springs School District, Hot Springs, South Dakota, without charge. Ill-health began to slow him increasingly in his later years, and he was unable to attend many dedications for his later works in person. At the time of his death, three important pieces were either unfinished, or only in model form: a design for a Washington Equestrian for the National Cathedral, Washington, D. C.; the Buffalo Herd; and a sarcophagus with reclining figure for the Reverend F. Ward Denys, for the National Cathedral, Washington, D. C.
Fraser was always especially noted for his designs of medals and medallions; his major works in this field were the Navy Cross, the Victory Medal (World War I), Medal of the American Committee on Devastated France, the American Museum of Safety - Harriman Medal, Thomas Edison Medal for the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, the Williams College Medal, the American Institute of Graphic Arts Medal, the Oregon Trail Medal, and the gold medal of the American Academy of Art & Letters.
11
CATALOGUE
12
The buffalo nickel was certainly Fraser's most widely distributed piece of sculpture. His commission for the coin was received partly in recognition of his early skill in designing medals and bas-reliefs. Misinformation about the design, particularly about the model for the profile of the Indian, has been almost as widely disseminated as has the coin. The design of this coin was even attributed wrongly to artist Winhold Reiss. Among those who claimed to have served as the model for the Indian were Chief Two Gun Buffalo Calf. (Al Schacht is perhaps the only person who ever expressly denied having been the model for this profile.) The model for the buffalo head was the Bronx Zoo's 'Old Diamond.'
In 1949, Fraser wrote a brief summary of his aims in designing the coin: 'It had always occurred to me that American coinage, outside of portraiture and lettering, might as well have belonged to any other country in the world. I felt that this was not as it should be, and that is the reason for the American character of my design. In other words, I wanted a coin which could be mistaken for no other coin in the world outside of the United States. This has been appreciated by many coinage experts. As a matter of fact, I was told that the Irish Free State based its coinage more or less on the idea of the Buffalo nickel, using Irish animals. . . . Answering your question about the original of the Indian on the Buffalo nickel. I have stated in a letter to the director of the mint that I did not make a portrait of any particular Indian. I have made several Indian portraits in the round. These I used to produce the Buffalo nickel. As to the feathers, they were the feathers attached to the scalp-lock and sometimes stood up, but more often hung at the side of the head. I felt that the latter was better as far as the design was concerned.'
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1. Buffalo Nickel
Obverse : Indian Profile Reverse : Buffalo Head
bronze four and one-half inches diameter each
14
The little figure of a range pony with his back to a raging wind, was used by Fraser as a study for his large statue of 'The End of the Trail,' as the photo on page sixty, with the two pieces in juxtaposition shows. It was also one of the few pieces Fraser showed at one of the annual exhibitions of the National Academy of Design. It was shown in 1916 under its alternative title, 'In the Wind.' This piece was also cast before ca 1918, and in the 1920's by Fraser in an undetermined number of casts. It was exhibited at the Young Galleries in Chicago in 1927, and at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington in 1930.
`Storm Driven,' a larger group with two horses, was copyrighted by Fraser in December 1918, as 'two ponies standing on the crest of a hill, protecting themselves from the wind by huddling together.' This piece was also cast in the 'twenties, and exhibited at the Young Galleries, Chicago in 1927. In August 1929, Fraser presented a cast of this piece to his friend Jay Darling, who wrote: "Storm-driven" emerged from the excelsior last night at eleven and knocked me flat with surprise. . . . I don't know of anything that could have been better medicine for me.'
2. Windswept (In the Wind) bronze five inches high
3. Storm Driven bronze sixteen inches high
15
16
According to the artist's own recollection, this piece was modeled first in Chicago when he was a boy of seventeen, and a working student in the studio of Chicago sculptor Richard Bock. He was directly inspired by the cowboy and Indian sculpture he had seen at the 1893 Columbian Exposition; on the photograph of the original model, all the sculptor retained of this original piece in later years, appeared the date 1894. When Fraser went to Paris to study in 1896, 'The End of the Trail' went with him. In 1898 it, along with a marble head called 'The Irishman,' won him the John Wanamaker prize at the American Artists Association exhibition in Paris. It also brought an invitation from Augustus Saint-Gaudens to work and study in his Paris studio.
For the Pacific Panama Exposition of 1915, the original small 'End of the Trail' was enlarged to heroic size, and placed in the Court of Palms. After the Exposition, plans were made for casting the statue in bronze and placing it on the Pacific Palisades. Various difficulties, among them the United States entry into the first World War, prevented the achievement of these plans, and the piece went into a 'graveyard' with other sculptural works from the Exposition. It was later purchased for $400., and placed in a park at Visalia, California. (This original stucco piece was purchased within the last couple of years by the Cowboy Hall of Fame, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where it is now on exhibit.) A large casting of this statue in bronze was presented to the town of Waupan, (Waupun) Wisconsin by Clarence Shaler, Esquire; it was unveiled in Shaler Park, in 1929. At the time of its unveiling, information was given that the statue was posed for by Seneca chief John Big Tree, in the summer of 1912 at Coney Island. For the horse, as the photograph of page fifty-nine shows, Fraser adapted the small bronze 'Windswept,' or 'In the Wind.' Examples of bronzes of this figure cast during the sculptor's lifetime are found in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the City Art Museum of Saint Louis, Brookgreen Gardens, and a small number of private collections.
4. The End of the Trail (without spear) bronze twelve inches high
17
5. The End of the Trail
a. bronze twelve inches high
b. bronze eighteen inches high
c. bronze thirty four inches high
18
Fraser's lifelong interest in and sympathy for the American Indian is shown in these two portrait heads. One is of White Eagle, which the artist copyrighted on April 21, 1919, described in the notice as 'Head of Indian, Head lifted, hair smooth and braided near ears, with bear claws showing at the neck.' The other head is identified on the back of a photograph from the artist's files as a portrait of 'Two Moons, Chief of the Northern Cheyenne.' Fraser is shown working on the head of 'White Eagle,' in the photograph on page fifty-five.
19
6. Indian Bust—White Eagle, 1919. bronze fourteen inches high
7. Indian Head—Two Moons. bronze thirteen inches high
20
On March 4, 1909, Congress authorized the Alexander Hamilton Memorial Association to erect a memorial in Washington to Alexander Hamilton. In 1911 a site was chosen on the north side of the Treasury Building for the statue. An anonymous donor, through the Secretary of the Treasury, made a gift which enabled the Commission to select James Earle Fraser as the sculptor of the piece. In 1917, a meeting was arranged between Fraser and William Gibbs McAdoo, Secretary of the Treasury, and plans for the statue were begun. This took place before the United States entered World War I; the nation's entry into the war delayed the completing of the statue for many months. At the end of 1918, McAdoo wrote Fraser: 'With reference to the Alexander Hamilton Memorial, the time has now arrived when it appears to be necessary to take the matter up with the Alexander Hamilton Statue Commission, and the Alexander Hamilton Memorial Association. It probably will be necessary to have a meeting of the Commission, and to exhibit your design and plans both to the Commission and the Association.'
The model was approved and work on the statue began. In November of 1919, McAdoo, who apparently had much to learn about the pace at which public statues are executed, wrote Fraser: 'How is the Alexander Hamilton statue coming on? I had hoped it would be finished before I left the Treasury. I am now anxious to know when it is likely to be completed.'
The statue was completed and installed in the spring of 1921. Fraser was quoted about this work in the Boston Transcript of April 30, 1921: 'I like to think that Hamilton has just come out on the steps of the Old Treasury, and is on his way to a Cabinet meeting. He has one of his usual struggles ahead of him in which he has to fight down opposition to measures and ideas from which we are deriving benefit today. He knows a fight is ahead of him, knows its strain, but knows also that he will win by the sheer power of his superiority of mind.'
A few (number unknown) of the twenty-inch size of the Alexander statue were cast during the sculptor's lifetime. One was exhibited at Grand Central Galleries, New York City, in 1924. A cast of this size was sold at Park-Bernet, April 14-15, 1942. This was apparently... [truncated due to length]Acquisition
Accession
2007.0020Source or Donor
James & Harriet LairdAcquisition Method
Gift
