William Rush was a U.S. neoclassical sculptor from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is considered the first major American sculptor. Rush was born in Philadelphia, the fourth child of Joseph Rush, a ship's carpenter, and first wife, Rebecca Lincoln. As a teenager, he apprenticed three years with woodcarver Edward Cutbush, and soon surpassed his master in the art of carving of ships' figureheads in wood. He saw military service during the American Revolution, as an officer in the militia. He opened his own wood carving business, and was in great demand when the U.S. Navy began building ships on Philadelphia. Later in life, he took up sculpture. Rush was one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and taught sculpture there. He was also active in local politics, serving on the Philadelphia City Council for two decades. Rush died in Philadelphia in 1833, and is buried at The Woodlands (Philadelphia).
Jo Davidson was an American sculptor. Although he specialized in realistic, intense portrait busts, Davidson did not require his subjects to formally pose for him; rather, he observed and spoke with them. He worked primarily with clay, while the final products were typically cast in terra-cotta or bronze, or carved from marble.
Alexander Milne Calder (MILL-nee) was a Scottish American sculptor best known for the architectural sculpture of Philadelphia City Hall. Both his son, Alexander Stirling Calder, and grandson, Alexander "Sandy" Calder, became significant sculptors in the 20th century.
The Swann Memorial Fountain is an art deco fountain sculpture located in the center of Logan Circle in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
3rd Sculpture International was a 1949 exhibition of contemporary sculpture held inside and outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It featured works by 250 sculptors from around the world, and ran from May 15 to September 11, 1949. The exhibition was organized by the Fairmount Park Art Association under the terms of a bequest made to the Association by the late Ellen Phillips Samuel.
James Peniston is an American sculptor whose monumental works in bronze include Gregor Mendel (1998), Keys To Community (2007), and American Pharoah (2017).
The Walt Whitman Bridge is a single-level suspension bridge spanning the Delaware River from Philadelphia in the west to Gloucester City in Camden County, New Jersey in the east. The bridge is named after the poet Walt Whitman, who resided in nearby Camden toward the end of his life.
Samuel Aloysius Murray was an American sculptor, educator, and protégé of the painter Thomas Eakins.
Smith Memorial Arch is an American Civil War monument at South Concourse and Lansdowne Drive in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Built on the former grounds of the 1876 Centennial Exposition, it serves as a gateway to West Fairmount Park. The Memorial consists of two colossal columns supported by curving, neo-Baroque arches, and adorned with 13 individual portrait sculptures ; two eagles standing on globes; and architectural reliefs of 8 allegorical figures.
George Washington is a statue by the French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon from the late 18th century. Based on a life mask and other measurements of George Washington taken by Houdon, it is considered one of the most accurate depictions of the subject. The original sculpture is located in the rotunda of the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, Virginia, and has been copied extensively.
Thorfinn Karlsefni is a bronze statue by Icelandic sculptor Einar Jónsson. The first casting of it is located in Fairmount Park on Kelly Drive, at the North end of Boathouse Row, Philadelphia. The sculpture was commissioned by Joseph Bunford Samuel through a bequest that his wife, Ellen Phillips Samuel, made to the Association for Public Art, specifying that the funds were to be used to create a series of sculptures "emblematic of the history of America." Thorfinn Karlsefni (1915–1918) was installed along Philadelphia's Kelly Drive near the Samuel Memorial and unveiled on November 20, 1920. The artwork is one of 51 sculptures included in the Association for Public Art's Museum Without Walls: AUDIO™ interpretive audio program for Philadelphia's outdoor sculpture. There is another casting of the statue in Reykjavík, Iceland.
Stone Age in America is an 1887 bronze statue by John J. Boyle located in Philadelphia, in Fairmount Park on Kelly Drive near Boathouse Row.
Dickens and Little Nell is a bronze sculpture by Francis Edwin Elwell that stands in Clark Park in the Spruce Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia. The sculpture depicts the 19th-century British author Charles Dickens and Nell Trent, a character from his 1840–41 novel The Old Curiosity Shop. The grouping was one of the most celebrated American sculptural works of the late 19th century.
Lincoln Monument (Philadelphia) is a monument honoring Abraham Lincoln in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of the first initiated in memory of the assassinated president, the monument was designed by neoclassical sculptor Randolph Rogers and completed in 1871. It is now located northeast of the intersection of Kelly Drive and Sedgley Drive, opposite Boathouse Row.
Chief Justice John Marshall is a bronze sculpture of John Marshall, by American sculptor William Wetmore Story. It is located at the Supreme Court, 1 First Street, Northeast, Washington, D.C. It was dedicated on May 10, 1884, by Morrison Waite. It was relocated from the West Terrace, of the United States Capitol.
The Aero Memorial is a gilded bronze sculpture by Paul Manship, commissioned by the Association for Public Art. Aero Memorial is located in Philadelphia's Aviator Park, across from The Franklin Institute at 20th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The memorial is a tribute to those aviators who died in World War I, and it was initiated by the Aero Club of Pennsylvania in 1917 with the help of the Fairmount Park Art Association. The Aero Club donated modest funds into the Fairmount Park Art Association in 1917 for the creation of the memorial, and after years of fundraising, the Art Association was finally able to contact Paul Manship for the commission 1939. The idea for a celestial sphere was approved in 1944, and the sculpture was completed in 1948. Aero Memorial was dedicated on June 1, 1950. Aero Memorial is one of 51 sculptures included in the Association for Public Art's Museum Without Walls interpretive audio program for Philadelphia's outdoor sculpture.
70 Sculptors is a photograph taken by Life photographer Herbert Gehr on May 14, 1949.
The Alexander von Humboldt statue is a monumental statue of Alexander von Humboldt in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Located in Fairmount Park, the statue was completed in 1871 and donated to the city in 1876.
The equestrian statue of Ulysses S. Grant is a public monument in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Located in Fairmount Park, the monument honors Ulysses S. Grant, who served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and later as President of the United States. The monument was designed by Daniel Chester French and Edward Clark Potter and consists of an equestrian statue atop a pedestal. The statue was dedicated in 1899.
Major General George Gordon Meade is an equestrian statue that stands in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The statue, which was unveiled in 1887, was designed by sculptor Alexander Milne Calder and honors George Meade, who had served as an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War and was later a commissioner for the park. The statue is one of two statues of Meade at Fairmount, with the other one being a part of the Smith Memorial Arch.
