List of American sculptors exhibited at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition
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United States Section, Court of Statuary, Palace of Fine Arts. Elwell's Charles Dickens and Little Nell in the right foreground
Sculpture could be found at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in various different places and serving a diverse number of functions. The works displayed in the specially designed sculpture exhibition halls tended to be by the better known artists of the day but the visitors to the Expo did not need to enter the buildings to find sculpture. The grounds, especially around the lagoon areas and decorating the various bridges were liberally sprinkled with sculpture, most of it made out of staff, an impermanent material. Also to be found were a number of fountains. Another form of sculpture at the Fair, also made of staff, was the architectural sculpture that adorned a large number of the buildings.
But here it might be well to say something of the material of which they are constructed, the new and wonderful "staff." It has the properties of both common plaster and cement, and can be worked into any required design; in hardening it shows an ivory-like surface, which, however, can be colored in any desired tint. Thus the most ornate architectural effects are produced, and all the buildings, being covered with this decorative substance, present the appearance of veritable palaces. For the designs, etc., it is modeled into plates the required size and joined invisibly, and it is estimated that about 500,000 of these pieces have been used in the large buildings alone.[1]:452–53
Sixteen bridges spanned the lagoons that meandered through the fairgrounds. Four statues of native American mammals, also made of staff, decorated the piers at each end of a bridge.[1]:453
The World's Columbian Exposition was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, held in Jackson Park, was a large water pool representing the voyage Columbus took to the New World. Chicago had won the right to host the fair over several other cities, including New York City, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis. The exposition was an influential social and cultural event and had a profound effect on American architecture, the arts, American industrial optimism, and Chicago's image.
Karl Theodore Francis Bitter was an Austrian-born American sculptor best known for his architectural sculpture, memorials and residential work.
Alexander Stirling Calder was an American sculptor and teacher. He was the son of sculptor Alexander Milne Calder and the father of sculptor Alexander (Sandy) Calder. His best-known works are George Washington as President on the Washington Square Arch in New York City, the Swann Memorial Fountain in Philadelphia, and the Leif Eriksson Memorial in Reykjavík, Iceland.
William Ordway Partridge was an American sculptor, teacher and author. Among his best-known works are the Shakespeare Monument in Chicago, the equestrian statue of General Grant in Brooklyn, the Pietà at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan, and the Pocahontas statue in Jamestown, Virginia.
Charles Allan Grafly, Jr. was an American sculptor, and teacher. Instructor of Sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for 37 years, his students included Paul Manship, Albin Polasek, and Walker Hancock.
William Rudolf O'Donovan was an American sculptor.
Thomas Shields Clarke was an American painter and sculptor. He is best known for his bronze sculpture The Cider Press, in San Francisco.
Richard W. Bock was an American sculptor and associate of Frank Lloyd Wright.
Francis Edwin Elwell was an American sculptor, teacher, and author.
Charles Yardley "C. Y." Turner was an American painter, illustrator, muralist and teacher. His genre scenes and American historical paintings were popularized through engravings and book illustrations.
John J. Boyle was an American sculptor active in Philadelphia in the last decades of the 19th century, known for his large-scale figurative bronzes in public settings, and, particularly, his portraiture of Native Americans.
Furio Piccirilli was an Italian-born American sculptor and one of the Piccirilli Brothers.
Carl Wilhelm Daniel Rohl-Smith was a Danish American sculptor who was active in Europe and the United States from 1870 to 1900. He sculpted a number of life-size and small bronzes based on Greco-Roman mythological themes in Europe as well as a wide number of bas-reliefs, busts, funerary monuments, and statues throughout Denmark, the German Confederation, and Italy. Emigrating to the United States in 1886, he once more produced a number of sculptures for private citizens. His most noted American works were a statue of a soldier for a Battle of the Alamo memorial in Texas, a statue of Benjamin Franklin for the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, a statue group in Chicago commemorating the Fort Dearborn Massacre, and the General William Tecumseh Sherman Monument in Washington, D.C.
Blanche Nevin (1841–1925) was an American artist and poet. She is considered America's first noteworthy woman sculptor, and is best known for her sculpture of Revolutionary War General Peter Muhlenberg in the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection.
Lions is a pair of outdoor 1893 bronze sculptures by Edward Kemeys, installed outside the Art Institute of Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois.
The Woman's Building was designed and built for the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893 under the auspices of the Board of Lady Managers. Of the twelve main buildings for the Exhibition, on June 30, 1892 The Woman's Building was the first to be completed. It had exhibition space as well as an assembly room, a library, and a Hall of Honor. The History of the World's Fair states, "It will be a long time before such an aggregation of woman's work, as may now be seen in the Woman's Building, can be gathered from all parts of the world again."
Frances M. Goodwin (1855–1929) was an American sculptor born in Newcastle, Indiana. Goodwin began her studies in Indianapolis, briefly studying at the Indiana Art Association, and then at the Chicago Art Institute where she studied with Lorado Taft and then at the Art Students League under Daniel Chester French.
Bruno Louis Zimm was an American sculptor. He created a variety of works: fountains, memorials, freestanding sculptures, and architectural sculptures.
Bruno Mankowski, was a German-born American sculptor, carver, ceramicist and medalist.
References
1 2 Benjamin C. Truman, History of the World's Fair, Being a Complete Description of the World's Columbian Exposition from Its Inception (Chicago & Philadelphia: Mammoth Publishing Company, 1893).
↑ A.B. Farquhar, Catalogue of the Exhibits of the State of Pennsylvania and of Pennsylvanians at the World's Columbian Exposition (Clarence M. Busch, State Printer of Pennsylvania, July 1893), p. 267.
↑ Photographs of the World's Fair: An elaborate collection of photographs of the buildings grounds and exhibits of the World's Columbian Exposition with a special description of The Famous Midway Plaisance, The Werner Company. Chicago, 1893, p. 97.
↑ Rossiter Johnson, ed., A History of the World's Columbian Exposition (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1897), p. 249.
Carr, Carolyn Kinder, et al., Revisiting the White City: American Art at the 1893 World's Fair, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. 1993 pp.356–383
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