42°20′13″N83°03′00″W / 42.33689°N 83.04993°W | |
Location | Grand Circus Park Historic District, Detroit, Michigan, United States |
---|---|
Designer | Daniel Chester French (sculptor) Henry Bacon (architect) |
Type | Fountain Statue |
Material | Bronze |
Dedicated date | July 27, 1921 |
Dedicated to | Russell A. Alger |
Russell Alger Memorial Fountain is a Detroit, Michigan fountain, one of the "most successful collaborations" created by the sculptor, Daniel Chester French and architect Henry Bacon. The bronze statue was cast by the Gorham Manufacturing Company. [1] It is located in Grand Circus Park and was dedicated on July 27, 1921.
The Beaux-Arts styled bronze monument consists of a "spirited" [2] female personification of "Michigan" with one hand raised in greeting while the other holds a sword and shield. The crest of the state of Michigan is on the shield in shallow relief. There is a bas relief portrait of Alger on the granite base. Lion heads on the base serve as founts to pour water into the surrounding bowl.
Russell Alger (1836–1907) was a Civil War veteran (he enlisted as a private and ended the war as a general), politician (Governor of Michigan, U.S. Senator from Michigan, and U.S. Secretary of War), and a very successful businessman. Following Alger's death a "memorial society" of Civil War veterans convened and commissioned the work. [3]
Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He is best known for his 1874 sculpture The Minute Man in Concord, Massachusetts, and his 1920 monumental statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Henry Bacon was an American Beaux-Arts architect who oversaw the engineering and design of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., built between 1915 and 1922, which was his final project before his 1924 death.
Adolph Alexander Weinman was a German-born American sculptor and architectural sculptor.
Russell Alexander Alger was an American politician and businessman. He served as the 20th governor of Michigan, U.S. Senator, and U.S. Secretary of War.
Evelyn Beatrice Longman was a sculptor in the U.S. Her allegorical figure works were commissioned as monuments and memorials, adornment for public buildings, and attractions at art expositions in early 20th-century America. She was the first woman sculptor to be elected a full member of the National Academy of Design in 1919.
The history of sculpture in the United States begins in the 1600s "with the modest efforts of craftsmen who adorned gravestones, Bible boxes, and various utilitarian objects with simple low-relief decorations." American sculpture in its many forms, genres and guises has continuously contributed to the cultural landscape of world art into the 21st century.
Samuel Herbert Adams was an American sculptor.
The Grand Circus Park Historic District contains the 5-acre (2.0 ha) Grand Circus Park in Downtown Detroit, Michigan that connects the theatre district with its financial district. It is bisected by Woodward Avenue, four blocks north of Campus Martius Park, and is roughly bounded by Clifford, John R. and Adams Streets. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. The building at 25 West Elizabeth Street was added to the district in 2000, and additional structures located within the district, but built between 1932 and 1960, were approved for inclusion in 2012.
Allen George Newman III was an American sculptor, best known for his statue "The Hiker".
The architecture of metropolitan Detroit continues to attract the attention of architects and preservationists alike. With one of the world's recognizable skylines, Detroit's waterfront panorama shows a variety of architectural styles. The post-modern neogothic spires of One Detroit Center refer to designs of the city's historic Art Deco skyscrapers. Together with the Renaissance Center, they form the city's distinctive skyline.
John Massey Rhind was a Scottish-American sculptor. Among Rhind's better known works is the marble statue of Dr. Crawford W. Long located in the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington D.C. (1926).
Thomas Hudson Jones was a U.S. sculptor for the Army's Institute of Heraldry.
Abraham Lincoln – also known as The Gettysburg Lincoln – is a bronze statue of President Abraham Lincoln by Daniel Chester French, located on the grounds of the Nebraska State Capitol. The monument was commissioned by the Abraham Lincoln Memorial Association of Lincoln, Nebraska, and produced in 1912.
Death and the Sculptor, also known as the Milmore Monument and The Angel of Death and the Young Sculptor is a sculpture in bronze, and one of the most important and influential works of art created by sculptor Daniel Chester French. The work was commissioned to mark the grave in Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts, of the brothers Joseph (1841–1886), James and Martin Milmore (1844–1883). It has two figures effectively in the round, linked to a background relief behind them. The right-hand figure represents a sculptor, whose hand holding a chisel is gently restrained by the fingers of the left-hand figure, representing Death, here shown as a winged female.
The Dupont Circle Fountain, formally known as the Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Dupont Memorial Fountain, is a fountain located in the center of Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. It honors Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont, a prominent American naval officer and member of the Du Pont family. The fountain replaced a statue of Du Pont that was installed in 1884. Designed by Henry Bacon and sculpted by Daniel Chester French, the fountain was dedicated in 1921. Prominent guests at the dedication ceremony included First Lady Florence Harding, Secretary of War John W. Weeks and Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby.
The Stephenson Grand Army of the Republic Memorial, also known as Dr. Benjamin F. Stephenson, is a public artwork in Washington, D.C. honoring Dr. Benjamin F. Stephenson, founder of the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization for Union veterans. The memorial is sited at Indiana Plaza, located at the intersection of 7th Street, Indiana Avenue, and Pennsylvania Avenue NW in the Penn Quarter neighborhood. The bronze figures were sculpted by J. Massey Rhind, a prominent 20th-century artist. Attendees at the 1909 dedication ceremony included President William Howard Taft, Senator William Warner, and hundreds of Union veterans.
Memory is an 1886–1887 marble sculpture by American artist Daniel Chester French. The finished version measures 57.5 inches (146 cm) x 25 inches (64 cm) x 42.5 inches (108 cm) and is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. The statue was carved by the Piccirilli Brothers.
General John Logan Memorial, also known as the John Alexander Logan Monument, is an outdoor bronze sculpture commemorating John A. Logan by sculptors Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Alexander Phimister Proctor, in a setting by architect Stanford White. Installed in Chicago's Grant Park, in the U.S. state of Illinois, the statue and pedestal sit atop a memorial mound, with a ceremonial stairway leading to the summit.
Daniel Chester French (1850–1931) was an American sculptor who was active in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, to Anne Richardson French and Henry Flagg French on April 20, 1850. His father, a polymath, was a judge and college president who popularized the French drain. In 1867, the family moved to Concord, Massachusetts, and French enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. French did not perform well academically and, after a year, he left the college and returned to Concord where he first learned sculpture while attending art classes with Louisa May Alcott. Between 1869 and 1872, French studied anatomy with William Rimmer, and in 1870 he undertook a one-month apprenticeship with the sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward. After completing The Minute Man in 1875, French studied sculpture in Florence, Italy, for a year, during part of which he worked out of Thomas Ball's studio.
Media related to Russell Alger Memorial Fountain at Wikimedia Commons