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Saturday, July 20, 2013

Public Sculpture: Andrew Dickson White at Home on Cornell Quad


Ithaca, NY. Andrew Dickson White statue on Cornell University quad. Karl Bitter, sculptor, 1915. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012.

Public Sculpture: Andrew Dickson White at Home on Cornell Quad
by Samuel D. Gruber

I recently wrote about the monument to Syracuse fireman and philanthropist Hamilton S. White.  Now I'd like to turn to a statue of his cousin, Andrew Dickson White (1832 – 1918), who is sitting pretty on Cornell University's historic quad, in Ithaca, New York.  Andrew White was an educator, diplomat, historian, and bibliophile. 

White was also co-founder with Ezra Cornell of Cornell University, where today he sits in bronze, very much at home in front of the classical style Goodwin Smith Hall.   The statue, by noted American Renaissance sculptor Karl Theodore Francis Bitter (1867-1915), was installed almost a century ago, in 1915.    Austrian-born Bitter was a leading sculptor of memorials and architectural sculpture.

Bitter and White chose the seated position for the commemorative statue. He had previously used the pose for a statue to Dr. William Pepper, placed on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in 1896, and in 1914 and 1915, about the time he was working on the Andrew White representation, on statues of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton

 
Philadelphia, Pa. Statue of Dr. William Pepper, University of Pennsylvania. Karl Bitter, sculptor 1896.  Photo from Schevill, Ferdinand, Karl Bitter: A Biography (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1917).

This posture has a long tradition; in Greek and Roman sculpture philosophers, poets (and some gods) were often depicted seated, and Roman emperors were also sometimes shown seated.  Statues of enthroned leaders - emperors, kings and popes - have been common since the Middle Ages.  For men of ideas and culture the seated posture came with age and implied sagacity, and this format was especially revived by sculptors of the American Renaissance movement as an alternative to the ever-popular standing and equestrian figure formats.   There are many early 20th-century examples of seated figures, and in my recent travels I seem to be quite attuned to them.   For example, a seated figure of Benjamin Franklin by sculptor John J. Boyle was installed in 1899 in front of Philadelphia's Main Post Office, at 9th and Chestnut Streets (it is now on the University of Pennsylvania campus), and a copy was placed in Paris in 1905. 

Paris, France. Benjamin Franklin monument at Square de Yorktown, 1899 / 1905.  John J. Boyle, sculptor. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2013)

In 1910,  John Quincy Adams Ward created a bronze statue of financier August Belmont, originally for the Belmont burial plot, but is now in front of the the Preservation Society of Newport County at the corner of Bellevue and Narragansett avenues in Newport.
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Newport, Rhode Island.  August Belmont statue, John Quincy Adams Ward, sculptor, 1910.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2008).

Andrew White was Cornell's first president and served as a professor in the Department of History. He was intensely interested in architecture, and he donated 4,000 architecture books to Cornell to help teach architecture (as well as the remainder of his 30,000 book collection) and this became the basis of the Cornell Library's esteemed architecture collection. White commissioned Cornell's first architecture student William Henry Miller to build his impressive house on the Cornell campus. 

Architecturally, the Andrew White statute serves an important purpose.  It humanizes the vast Cornell quad, one of the largest formal spaces on any American campus.  The relaxed pose is a softer counterpoint to the formal classical columns of Goldwin Smith hall, erected in 1904 afters designs by Carrére and Hastings.  The presence of the seated, relaxed Andrew D. White makes the big space seem smaller; more like a living room or salon than a military assembly ground.


White was the U.S. Ambassador to Germany (1879–1881), and first president of the American Historical Association (1884–1886). Upstate New York Republicans unsuccessfully attempted to nominate him for governor in 1876 and for congress in 1886. Following his resignation as Cornell's President in 1885, White served as Minister to Russia (1892–1894), President of the American delegation to The Hague Peace Conference (1899), and again as Ambassador to Germany (1897–1902)

Ithaca, NY. Andrew Dickson White statue on Cornell University quad. Karl Bitter, sculptor, 1915. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012.

Ithaca, NY. Andrew Dickson White statue on Cornell University quad. Karl Bitter, sculptor, 1915. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012.




Monday, July 15, 2013

Fayette Park's Other Firefighter: The Philip Eckel Monument

Cross posted from My Central New York

Syracuse, NY. Philip Eckel Monument in original location at North Salina, State and Butternut Street intersection. From Views of Syracuse, N.Y. (Portland, Maine: Lyman H. Nelson Co. n.d.)

Syracuse, NY. Philip Eckel Monument Fayette Firefighters' Memorial Park. photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2008.

Syracuse, NY. Philip Eckel Monument Fayette Firefighters' Memorial Park. photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2008. For a portrait of photo portrait of Eckel click here.

Syracuse, NY. Philip Eckel Monument Fayette Firefighters' Memorial Park. photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2008.

Fayette Park's Other Firefighter: The Philip Eckel Monument
by Samuel D. Gruber

Continuing the theme of Syracuse Firefighters, begun with the recent posts about Engine House Number 10 and the Hamilton White Monument, it is time to give some consideration to the Philip Eckel Monument, also now situated in Fayette Firefighters Memorial Park, but once proudly displayed at an important intersection on the city's Northside, in the heart of what was once a strong German immigrant neighborhood, where it was dedicated in 1900.  

The history of the Eckel monument is a good lesson on the history of local fame, immigrant pride, city traffic, and public taste.  What was one of the most visible public monuments in Syracuse is now hidden away among the foliage of Fayette Park.  

Read the entire blog entry here

Monday, July 8, 2013

Gail Sherman Corbett's Hamilton White Monument, Syracuse

One of the finest public monuments in Syracuse is the Hamilton White Memorial installed in Fayette Park (now Fayette Firefighters Park) more than a century ago.  Here is a post about the monument, its talented sculptor Gail Sherman, and the subject of the commemoration, firefighter Hamilton White.

Cross posted from My Central New York , Saturday, July 6, 2013

Gail Sherman Corbett's Hamilton White Monument at Fayette Park

Syracuse, NY. Fayette (or Firefighter's) Park. Hamilton White Monument, Gail Sherman Corbett, sculptor. Postcard.

Syracuse, NY. Fayette (or Firefighter's) Park. Hamilton White Monument, Gail Sherman Corbett, sculptor.. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2008)
Gail Sherman Corbett's Hamilton White Monument at Fayette Park
by Samuel D. Gruber

When I started this blog, one of my intentions was to report on the most important, interesting and beautiful (yes, I still use that term occasionally) public monuments in Central New York. A few years ago (!) I wrote about the restoration of the Kirkpatrick Monument at Washington Square, and mentioned the earlier monument to Hamilton Salisbury White created by the same artistic team - Gail Sherman and Harvey Wiley Corbett, (who married in 1905) and restored by the same women, Sharon BuMann. The monument is situated on the west side of Fayette Park (now Fayette Firefighters Memorial Park) and provides a well-designed architectural and yet intimate introduction to the park from Downtown.

Syracuse, NY. Fayette (or Firefighter's) Park. Hamilton White Monument, dlt. Gail Sherman Corbett, sculptor.. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2008).
Because my most recent post was about a turn-of-the-20th century Engine House Number 10, I'd like to now write more about the Hamilton White monument since it received a lot of attention when it was made, and it celebrates one of Syracuse's most colorful characters, and the founder and patron saint of our Fire Department. 

"The monument was erected by popular subscription as an evidence of respect to the memory of Hamilton Salisbury White, a wealthy and prominent citizen of Syracuse who took a keen interest in the improvement of the fire department, devoting much time and money to the discovery and utilization of the latest and best methods of fighting fire, and who met his death a little over six years ago while personally helping to extinguish a serious fire that threatened the business part of the city.” [from full article in The Craftsman, quoted at length below]

Read the entire blog post here.

Monday, July 1, 2013

Paris: Walter Spitzer Bronze Monument to the Deportation to the Velodrome d'Hiver Victms

Cross posted from Samuel Gruber's Jewish Art & Monument

Monday, July 1, 2013

Paris: Monuments to the Deportation to the Velodrome d'Hiver Victims

Paris, France.  Monument to the Victims of the Deportation to the Velodrome d'Hiver by Walter Spitzer, dedicated 1994. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012.
Paris, France.  Monument to the Victims of the Deportation to the Velodrome d'Hiver by Walter Spitzer, dedicated 1994. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012.

Paris: Monuments to the Deportation to the Velodrome d'Hiver
by Samuel S. Gruber

Paris is a city of monuments - some better known than others.  In 1993, a monument was created to commemorate the round-up of 14,000 Jews in Paris and their detainment in the Vélodrome d'Hiver an indoor velodrome (cycle track) at the corner of the boulevard de Grenelle and the rue Nélaton in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, not far from the Eiffel Tower.  The deportees, many of whom were women and children, were held in the velodrome for several days before their deportation to transit camps, leading in turn to their removal to Auschwitz, and their deaths.

The deportation of Paris's Jews was one of many callous acts of French collaboration in Nazi aims, which have gradually received more attention in France and abroad.  Émile Hennequin, director of the Paris police, ordered on July 12, 1942 that "the operations must be effected with the maximum speed, without pointless speaking and without comment."  Local police reports document that beginning at 4:00 a.m. on 16 July 1942, 13,152 Jews were arrested, of which 5,802 (44%) were women and 4,051 (31%) were children.  Some people were warned by the French Resistance or hidden and escaped being rounded up.  The arrested had to leave their homes quickly - they could take only a few items; blanket, sweater, shoes and two shirts.  Conditions in the velodrome were horrendous, with little food and water, few toilets, and no other amenities.  The deportation was remembered in Marcel Ophuls now classic documentary The Sorrow and the Pity (1969) and more recently an attempt to visually recreate the internment was made in the film Sarah's Key, released in 2010, based on the 2002 novel of the same name by Tatiana de Rosnay.  The book and film stirred intentional interest in the history of the round-up and the fate of French Jews, and I suppose led to my own visit to the memorials last when in Paris December.