William Tecumseh Sherman Victory | |
---|---|
Artist | Augustus Saint-Gaudens |
Year | 1902 |
Type | Sculpture |
Medium | Bronze |
Subject | William Tecumseh Sherman |
Location | New York City, New York, U.S. |
40°45′52″N73°58′24″W / 40.7645°N 73.9732°W |
William Tecumseh Sherman, also known as the Sherman Memorial or Sherman Monument, [1] [2] is a sculpture group honoring William Tecumseh Sherman, created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and located at Grand Army Plaza in Manhattan, New York. Cast in 1902 and dedicated on May 30, 1903, the gilded-bronze monument consists of an equestrian statue of Sherman and an accompanying statue, Victory, an allegorical female figure of the Greek goddess Nike. [3] The statues are set on a Stony Creek granite pedestal designed by the architect Charles Follen McKim. [4]
The idea for the statue dates back to as early as 1888. The architect Charles Follen McKim and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens decided in 1902 to install an equestrian statue of U.S. Army general William Tecumseh Sherman in Central Park. [4] Several sites had been considered, including Sherman Square on the Upper West Side; the median of Riverside Drive just south of Grant's Tomb; another site on Riverside Drive; and Grand Army Plaza. [5] The Central Park Mall was also considered but ruled out. [6] The statue was dedicated in the northern half of Grand Army Plaza on May 30, 1903. [7]
The plaza was re-landscaped in the 1910s after newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer died in 1911, bequeathing $50,000 for the creation of a memorial fountain. [8] As part of the fountain's construction, the Sherman Monument remained in the northern half, but moved 15 feet (4.6 m) west to be symmetrically opposite the fountain. [9]
On July 23, 1974, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated Grand Army Plaza, including the Sherman Monument, as a New York City scenic landmark. [10] On March 26, 1985, the Central Park Conservancy and the architecture firm of Buttrick White & Burtis presented plans to the Landmarks Preservation Commission for a full restoration of the plaza, including the Sherman Monument. [11] The work was completed in June 1990, including a re-gilding of the statue, and the replacement of a palm frond and a sword that had been removed previously. [12] Grand Army Plaza was renewed again in 2013, including a re-gilding of the statue of William Tecumseh Sherman. [13]
According to the report prepared by the Landmarks Commission for its 1974 designation, many consider the Sherman Monument to be Saint-Gaudens’ finest work. Not everyone agreed; according to Frank Weitenkampf, [14] sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward was less than enthusiastic about the equestrian composition: "Saint-Gaudens was a timid rider and it showed in this work.... if the horse should stumble the general would inevitably be thrown over his head."
The obverse of Saint-Gaudens' 1907 United States Saint-Gaudens double eagle coin, portraying Liberty, [15] is based on his sculpture of Victory.
Augustus Saint-Gaudens was an Irish and American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who embodied the ideals of the American Renaissance. Saint-Gaudens was born in Dublin to an Irish-French family, and raised in New York City. He traveled to Europe for further training and artistic study. After he returned to New York City, he achieved major critical success for his monuments commemorating heroes of the American Civil War, many of which still stand. Saint-Gaudens created works such as the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial on Boston Common, Abraham Lincoln: The Man, and grand equestrian monuments to Civil War generals: General John Logan Memorial in Chicago's Grant Park and William Tecumseh Sherman at the corner of New York's Central Park. In addition, he created the popular historicist representation of The Puritan.
Alexander Phimister Proctor was an American sculptor with the contemporary reputation as one of the nation's foremost animaliers.
Mary Lawrence (Tonetti) (1868–1945) was an American sculptor. She designed the Christopher Columbus sculpture at the World's Columbian Exposition.
Abraham Lincoln: The Man is a larger-than-life size 12-foot (3.7 m) bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. The original statue is in Lincoln Park in Chicago, and later re-castings of the statue have been given as diplomatic gifts from the United States to the United Kingdom, and to Mexico.
Judith Shea is an American sculptor and artist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1948. She received a degree in fashion design at Parsons School of Design in 1969 and a BFA in 1975. This dual education formed the basis for her figure based works. Her career has three distinct phases: The use of cloth and clothing forms from 1974 to 1981; Hollow cast metal clothing-figure forms from 1982 until 1991; and carved full-figure statues made of wood, cloth, clay, foam and hair beginning in 1990 to present.
Grand Army Plaza is a square at the southeast corner of Central Park in Manhattan, New York City, at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Central Park South, covering two blocks on the west side of Fifth Avenue between 58th and 60th Streets. It contains an equestrian statue of William Tecumseh Sherman on its northern half and the Pulitzer Fountain on its southern half.
Abraham Lincoln: The Head of State is a 9-foot (2.7 m) tall bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln in Grant Park, in Chicago. Created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and completed by his workshop in 1908, it was intended by the artist to evoke the loneliness and burden of command felt by Lincoln during his presidency. The sculpture depicts a contemplative Lincoln seated in a chair, and gazing down into the distance. The sculpture is set upon a pedestal and a 150-foot (46 m) wide exedra designed by architect Stanford White.
Major General George B. McClellan is an equestrian statue in Washington, D.C. that honors politician and Civil War general George B. McClellan. The monument is sited on a prominent location in the Kalorama Triangle neighborhood due to efforts made by area residents. The statue was sculpted by American artist Frederick William MacMonnies, a graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts whose best known work is a statue of Nathan Hale in New York City. MacMonnies was chosen to design the statue following a lengthy competition organized by a statue commission, led by then Secretary of War William Howard Taft. The monument was dedicated in 1907, with prominent attendees at the ceremony including President Theodore Roosevelt, New York City mayor George B. McClellan Jr., politicians, generals and thousands of military personnel.
The General William Tecumseh Sherman Monument is an equestrian statue of American Civil War Major General William Tecumseh Sherman located in Sherman Plaza, which is part of President's Park in Washington, D.C., in the United States. The selection of an artist in 1896 to design the monument was highly controversial. During the monument's design phase, artist Carl Rohl-Smith died, and his memorial was finished by a number of other sculptors. The Sherman statue was unveiled in 1903. It is a contributing property to the Civil War Monuments in Washington, D.C. and to the President's Park South, both of which are historic sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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.
The Soldiers' and Sailors' Arch is a triumphal arch at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, New York City, just north of Prospect Park. Built from 1889 to 1892, the arch is dedicated "To the Defenders of the Union, 1861–1865".
The Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts Fifty-Fourth Regiment is a bronze relief sculpture by Augustus Saint-Gaudens opposite 24 Beacon Street, Boston. It depicts Colonel Robert Gould Shaw leading members of the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry as it marched down Beacon Street on May 28, 1863 to depart the city to fight in the South. The sculpture was unveiled on May 31, 1897. This is the first civic monument to pay homage to the heroism of African American soldiers.
Sherman Monument may refer to:
Pulitzer Fountain is an outdoor fountain located in Manhattan's Grand Army Plaza in New York. The fountain is named after newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer who died in 1911 having bequeathed $50,000 for the creation of the fountain. Pulitzer intended his fountain to be "like those in the Place de la Concorde, Paris, France." The fountain was designed by the architect Thomas Hastings, and crowned by a statue conceived by the sculptor Karl Bitter. The fountain was dedicated in May 1916.
The equestrian statue of Henry Warner Slocum is a monumental statue in Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza, in New York City. The equestrian statue, designed by sculptor Frederick William MacMonnies, was dedicated in 1905 in honor of Henry Warner Slocum, who served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and later as a U.S. Representative from the state of New York.
The Henry W. Maxwell Memorial is a public memorial located in Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza in New York City. The memorial, designed by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, consists of a bronze tablet featuring a relief of Maxwell, a local philanthropist and park commissioner, affixed to a boulder. The memorial was dedicated in 1903 at the intersection of Eastern Parkway and Flatbush Avenue. In 1912, the memorial was moved to its present location at Grand Army Plaza. In the 1970s, due to vandalism, the plaque was removed and placed in storage, with a replacement plaque affixed to the boulder in 1996. The original plaque is located in the Brooklyn Museum.
Major General Ambrose E. Burnside, also known as the Ambrose Burnside Monument, is a monumental equestrian statue in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. The statue, located in the city's Burnside Park, was designed by sculptor Launt Thompson and depicts Ambrose Burnside, an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War who later served as the governor of Rhode Island. Ambrose had died in 1881 and the project to erect a statue in his honor began shortly afterwards. It was dedicated on July 4, 1887 in a large ceremony that included several notable guests of honor, such as General William Tecumseh Sherman, Colonel Robert Hale Ives Goddard, and the governors of both Connecticut and Rhode Island. The monument was originally located in Exchange Place, but it was moved to its current location in the early 1900s. As part of the move, the pedestal was replaced with one designed by William R. Walker.