Name/Title
Gilcrease Magazine of American History, James Earl FraserDescription
Gilcrease Magazine of American History and Art. Vol. 7 No. 1, January 1985. Gilcrease is located at 1400 Gilcrease Museum Road, Tulsa, Oklahoma. This issue had an article about James Earle Fraser.
James Earle Fraser, Sculptor of American Heros, taken from the Gilcrease Magazine of American History and Art Vol.7 No1, January 1985.
Note: Not all of the pages were scanned, only the 7 dealing with James Earle Fraser.
JAMES EARLE FRASER:
Sculptor of American Heroes
BY LOUISA BARRY COLLETT
Caption to the left of the picture on page 1: [The Treasury Building in Washington, D C. is adorned with a sculpture by James Earle Fraser of Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury.]
JAMES EARLE FRASER was fortunate throughout his life. From his earliest days his life experiences were the stuff of which artistic legends are made.
Little did he know as a voung boy growing up on the prairies of Dakota Territory in the late nineteenth century, son of a railroad contractor-engineer, that one day his hands would shape monuments that would become icons of American history.
The first retrospective exhibition of the sculpture of James Earle Fraser opened January 12 at Gilcrease Museum, sponsored jointly by the museum and Syracuse University. The exhibition, "James Earle Fraser: Sculptor of American Heroes,"includes bronze castings produced during the sculptor's lifetime, original plaster models, and works in marble that are part of the Syracuse University Art Collection.
The catalogue for the exhibition opens with a foreword by Fred A. Myers, director of Gilcrease Museum, in which he points out that it is the "desire of everyone connected with the project that James Earle Fraser at last will receive the general recognition for the achievements he earned so many years ago."
Note at bottom of page 1: [Louisa Collect is director of development for the Thomas Gilcrease Museum Association.
From the familiar Buffalo nickel to the heart-rending The End of' the Trail to the major monuments which today grace our nation's capital, Fraser's works themselves are lasting tribute to his skill as a sculptor.
When he was a boy, all the living things of the prairie interested James Earle. He spent much of his time watching jack rabbits, deer, prairie chickens, wolves, muskrat, and other animals and birds, and in drawing the animals in their natural settings. Fraser was soon to see a young man carve chalk-stone from a local quarry and began himself to carve little figures. He did not lack for subjects. He watched the cowboys and their ways and listened to the tales of the hunters and trappers about their adventures with buffalo and with the Indians. The Sioux often camped near the family ranch and young Fraser spent much time with them playing games with boys and learning their skills and customs. Fraser felt empathy for the Indians driven from their lands and later wrote:
"On one occasion a fine fuzzy bearded old hunter remarked with some bitterness in his voice, `The Indians will be driven into the Pacific Ocean.' The thought so impressed me that I couldn't forget it, in fact, it created a picture in my mind which eventually became The End of the Tail. I liked the Indians very much and couldn't understand why they were to be pushed into the Pacific ... I made many sketches and some finished work, and at the age of 17, in 1894. I created the first model of The End of the Trail, the thought that had been in my mind since my boyhood in Dakota."
Caption under picture on page 2: [The Second Division Memorial, near Constitution Avenue and Seventeenth Street, N. W. in Washington, D. C. is Frasers work.]
When Fraser was 12, his father's work took the family to Minneapolis where Jarnes Earle won a city-wide competition for drawing. A year later the family moved to Chicago. There Fraser studied architectural drawing and persuaded his father to visit the Chicago Art Institute to investigate the possibilities for his studying art as a career.
The very next summer Fraser was invited to work as an assistant in the studio of sculptor Richard Bock, preparing clay. He also began attending night classes at the Art Institute where he studied drawing. These experiences at the studio and at the Chicago Institute convinced him that his life work should be as an artist.
Both at work and at the Institute he was to become friends with many American artists who would also become famous. He was also able to spend much time at the Chicago World's Fair where there were many examples of fine sculpture by American artists. Admiration of the young Fraser's work by the well known collector Sir William C. Van Horn persuaded Fraser's father that his son had excellent potential and should pursue a career as an artist.
This approval took Fraser, then 20 years old, to Paris to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, the Julian Academy and tire Academie Colarossi. He had brought with him his first model for The End of the Trail, which was shown in an exhibition of works sponsored by the American Art Association in 1898. It introduced the young artist to Augustus St. Gaudens, the renowned American sculptor who was working in Paris, who invited Fraser first to visit his studio and then to become his assistant to work on a statue of General William T Sherman, a commission for the City of New York.
Fraser's two-year stint of working for St. Gaudens in Paris developed into a lasting friendship and led Fraser to accompany St. Gaudens back to the United States in 1900 to assist in the completion of the General Sherman statue and also on a memorial for a church in Edinburgh, Scotland.
In that year, 1902, Fraser decided to strike out on his own and established a studio in Greenwich Village in New York City. Here he was to encounter many friends from his school days in Paris as well as to meet important artists who kept studios in the Village. Sociable, he sought out interesting places and the writers, artists, poets, editors, art connoisseurs and dealers who frequented them.
Caption at the bottom of page 2: [At the peak of his career in the 1930s Fraser completed two monumental figures. "Authority of Law" and "Contemplation of Justice," for the Supreme Court Building in Washington, D. C.At right is a profile of the "Contemplation of Justice" figure, a woman dressed in classical costume, about 10 feel high.]
Commissions came early to Fraser. While still working as an assistant to St. Gaudens, he was commissioned to design a medal honoring the sculptor for the 1901 Pan American International Exposition in Buffalo, New York, the first of many which brought him the reputation of being a distinguished designer of medals.
In 1902 he did a bas relief portrait of Horatio Hathaway Brewster, exhibited at the National Gallery, which won him recognition and generated commissions to do many such portrait busts and reliefs of both children and adults.
In addition tor portraits and medals, Fraser completed an equestrain statue, Cherokee Indian, and a seated figure of Thomas Jefferson for the Louisana Purchase Exposition in in St. Louis in 1904.
In 1905 Fraser became an instructor at the Art Students' League where he met his wife-to-be, Laura, a Student of sculptur. Two years later she also became an instructor under Fraser's supervision and on Thanksgiving Day, 1913, the two were married. The following year they moved to a house in Westport, Connecticut, that included a 30 by 60 foot studio a story and a half high. It was to be their home and workplace for 40 years. Laura Fraser was an excellent artist and in addition to her own work, executed many commissions with her husband.
St. Gaudens recommended Fraser to do his first important commission, a bust of Theodore Roosevelt for the United States Senate Chambers, a work highly regarded by the President and praised by art critics of the time.
Every American who has toured Washington, D. C. has had many opportunitics to View the work of James Earle Fraser. His first important commission was a statue of Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury for the South Plaza of the Treasury Building, a work unveiled in 1923.
In West Potomac Park in the nation's Capital stands the John Ericsson Memorial, commissioned to honor the man who perfected the screw propellor that revolutionized the field of navigation. The sculpture consists of a seated portrait of Ericsson with three allegorical figures: Labor, an iron worker, Adventure, a Viking, and Vision, a woman, and was dedicated in 1926 by President Calvin Coolidge.
The first two works Fraser completed in the 1930s were the monumental figures, Authority of Law and Contemplation of Justice, located at the Supreme Court building. The two heroic
statues are of a man and a woman, dressed in classical costume and seated, each about 19 feet high.
For the National Archives Building on Constitution Avenue Fraser sculpted two Acroterian eagles in limestone, each 12 feel high, presiding over the corners of the pediment. And at each of the steps of the south portico Fraser placed two imposing heroic-size granite figures, Heritage and Guardianship, each eight feet tall.
Also located on Consitution Avenue is the Second Divison Memorial, financed by the Division members and their friends in honor of their fallen comrades from three wars. For this memorial Fraser sculptured a gilded fiery bronze sword 18 feet high which guards a gateway. The Second Division memorial was dedicated bv President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936.
In 1951 Fraser saw the completion of a monumental work in Washington entitled Arts of
Peace. This pair of heroic-size gilded bronze statues is located at the head of Rock Creek Parkway (Arlington Memorial Bridge). The 17-foot statues were designed by Fraser in 1925 and were cast in Italy in 1949. One of tile statues, Music and Harvest, consists of three figures representing the harvest: a gigantic winged horse in the center, a male ligure holding a bundle of wheat to the left of the horse, and a woman representing music holding a harp, flanked to the right of the horse. The other statue is entitlled Aspiration and Literature and shows winged horse, flanked at the right by a man holding an open book to symbolize literature. and a woman at the left holding a bow and representing aspiration. The winged horse is Pegasus, a symbol of poetic inspiration. The works were dedicated on September 26, 1951, two years before Fraser's death.
Caption under the picture on the right side of page 5: [Fraser sculpted four pediments for the Commerce Building in Washington D. C., representing the agencies of the Department of Commerce. At top is Mining, then Aeronautics above, and Fisheries below.]
Caption under the picture on the top of page 6: [Two Acroterian eagies in limestone, eacn 12 feet high, were designed by Fraser to preside over tne pediment of the National Archives Building on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D. C. For the foot of the south steps of that building Fraser sculpted two heroic size granite figures, each eight feet tall. "Heritage" is shown below.]
Through the efforts of Alfred T. Collette, Ph.D., professor and director of the Syracuse University Art Collection, the Fraser material in the archives of Syracuse University has been researched for the exhibition and catalogue. He was assisted by Syracuse University colleagues Domenic Iacono, curator and registrar, Philip Ladouseur, assistant curator of the university Art Collection.
The Involvement of Gilcrease Museum with the Fraser project began with a Suggestion from former trustee Lawrence Bernhardt, and the positive assessment and support of Patsy Lyon, then a member of the Thomas Gilcrease Museum Association board of directors.
Gilcrease members and visitors have long known Fraser's work through a small version of The End of the Trail in the museums collection, a sculpture which portrays an Indian brave, exhausted and defeated, on his horse, long recognized as a symbol of the history of the American Indian.
The "James Earle Fraser: Sculptor Of American Heroes" exhibition is a revelation of scope of Fraser's work and a reminder of the quality and importance of sculpture American public places. The exhibition, sponsored by the Thomas Gilcrease Museum Association, will be on display at Gilcrease Museum through April 21, 1985.
Caption at the bottom of page 6: [The monumental work, "Arts of Peace" which stands at the
head of Rock Creek Parkway (Arlington Memorial Bridge) in Washington, D. C. was dedicated in 1951. At left in the photograph is one of the 17 foot high statues, "Music and Harvest." "Aspiration and Literature" is at right.Acquisition
Accession
2007.0020Source or Donor
James & Harriet LairdAcquisition Method
Gift
