Arts and Letters

When Bruce Moore entered the sculpture class of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts it was clear to us slightly older students that something extraordinary had happened. We had never before seen anything like this lanky seventeen-year-old bundle of nervous energy from Wichita, Kansas—so fond of jokes and horseplay, so friendly and outgoing, yet so intense in his work. Here was the embodiment of all that we had imagined of the American Frontier. He was such a novelty that at first we hardly took him seriously. But he quickly won our respect by his work. He won our affection, too, by his extreme generosity and guilelessness. His competitive spirit was untinged with any trace of jealousy; his zeal was contagious.

He had a rare gift for modeling animals, which soon led him to divide his time between Charles Grafly's life class and Albert Laessle's class, in which the model was often a horse, a goat, or a goose. His work in these classes was rewarded with Cresson Traveling Scholarships which took him to Europe for two summers; and when only twenty-three he won a Guggenheim Fellowship, giving him two years in Paris, where his association with a wide circle of other creative people offered new inspiration. And—most important of all—during his sojourn there he married Alice Hugli, a fine artist whose wisdom, understanding, and forbearance sustained him in the difficult, and at times tragic, years that were to come. Later, two years in Rome were added to the periods of work abroad. A succession of professional honors began with the award of the Widener Gold Medal of the Pennsylvania Academy in 1929 and continued steadily after his return to the United States in the Depression years.

Financial difficulties did not dampen his enthusiasm or turn him from the single-minded pursuit of his own ideas. What may at times have appeared headstrong self-confidence concealed deep reticence. He was self-effacing. I cannot imagine his ever having done or said anything with the thought that it might lead to a commission or a sale.

And indeed his large commissions were few. There is the colossal figure of Columbia for the World War II Memorial in Honolulu; then a spirited statue of Billy Mitchell; and two sets of superb bronze doors, one for Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, the other for the Wichita Art Association. These, with two huge tigers at Princeton, may be his best known works. But there is a wealth of smaller sculpture: medals, portraits, single figures, groups, birds and animals—pieces that exhibit to a greater degree the special nature of his talent. Everything that he did is charged with energy. He had a way of feeling and expressing the essence of any subject so that it was vividly intensified in the stone or bronze. And this was done without the slightest hint of caricature even when there was a touch of whimsy or humor. A strong sense of the decorative controlled it all. His drawings and lithographs, particularly those of animals, are immensely powerful; his many engravings for Steuben Glass demonstrate his mastery of design coupled with his gift for the portrayal of dramatic action.

We all wonder about the enduring quality of any work of art. Robert Frost wrote: "The utmost ambition is to lodge a few poems where they will be hard to get rid of." Lingering illness eclipsed the last years of Bruce Moore's life; public awareness of his contribution was dimmed. But the unique spirit of his most characteristic works assures them a place from which they will not easily be dislodged.