Arts and Letters

Frederick MacMonnies will live through his art as long as people cherish beautiful form in sculpture, and guard it in sacred places,—although his death means the loss to the world of a great and colorful artist.

He was a man of rare charm and wit, shy, perhaps, at times, but to his friends a delightful companion.

His early life was filled with acclaim, much affluence, and finally, too little recognition. It is sad to realize that such high appreciation showered upon him here and abroad should be even slightly dimmed.

Much of the reason for this is the result of varying fashions in art, and a great deal to a change in his own style of work.

This leaves him none the less the great artist—and I am honored to pay tribute to his genius and personality.

The youth of MacMonnies became a tradition to me when I assisted Saint-Gaudens in his Windsor studio; and listened to his account of the young man's aptitude for modelling, and his ability to make beautiful and completely comprehended sketches at the age of seventeen.

From that period on, he developed with an amazing rapidity, enhanced in large measure by his early training in a great sculptor's studio, such a training as was given to the young artists of the Renaissance, with the opportunity to see and aid in the making of real works of art.

His promise was carried to an early realization,—he was considered a prodigy,—an unusual occurrence in the complicated art of sculpture.

He had the gift of the musician or poet, to produce extraordinary work at an early age.

By the time MacMonnies had reached the age of thirty, he had completed many remarkable sculptures.

Among them was the colossal Columbian Fountain, at the World's Fair in Chicago, in 1893, a symbolic ship of state, guided by Father Time, with the amazing total of twenty-seven heroic figures.

The modelling of the nudes, and general grouping of the composition immediately stamped young MacMonnies as one of the strongest sculptors of the period.

Even before this colossal work, he had completed a figure of Diana, a Faun with a Heron, and three very unusual portrait statues, namely: the Nathan Hale, Stranahan, and Sir Henry Vane.

There are extremely few portrait statues which can be classed as works of art, and the ability to create them is rare, but the successful portraits go down the ages as surely as the Elgin marbles. The Sophocles, Demosthenes, Gattemalatta, the superb Colleoni, are examples worthy of such comparison.

MacMonnies showed his particular genius in this exacting and difficult phase of sculpture in four statues which are deservedly well known.

The statue of Nathan Hale in City Hall Park, which I have mentioned, modelled superbly with masterly ease, is one of the finest statues in America.

Sir Henry Vane, in the Boston Public Library, a beautifully modelled swashbuckling dandy of the Colonial period, excellent in character, and admirably designed, is in direct contrast to the Stranahan portrait,—conceived and executed with severity and power.

The Shakespeare is the fourth portrait statue in this group. It was executed for the Congressional Library, along with the bronze doors of the same building.

With the exception of the Congressional sculpture, this very remarkable output was accomplished, I must repeat, before he had reached the age of thirty. To the layman, this may not seem extraordinary, but I know of no other sculptor who has had such a record.

From his thirtieth year his activity continued unabated, with the Bacchante and Infant; three figures for St. Paul's Church; a Victory figure for West Point; the Shakespeare; and the sculpture for the Brooklyn Memorial Arch, crowned by a Quadriga, one of his best architectural pieces of sculpture. In this work he attained flowing design, with a fine restraint.

His versatility is further shown in the Baby with the Duck, humorous, impish, and playful. Saint-Gaudens said that it was comparable to the best Pompeian sculptures, with an entirely modern approach.

In the same year came the huge groups of horses in Prospect Park, richly modelled, immensely animated, but retaining fine and powerful contours.

All of this remarkable sculpture was accomplished in ten short years, and before he was thirty-seven years old. It was inevitable that such a pace could not be sustained, and a breakdown in health forced him to give up work.

When he was allowed to resume, he began by painting. It came easily, his handling was fluid, his color good, and his drawing superb. The French painter, Gérôme, spoke of his drawings as worthy of Holbein. In 1903 the Paris Salon conferred upon him a medal for painting.

After 1905 he created numerous major works, with a noticeable difference in style; a monument for Denver; the Washington at Princeton; Civic Virtue; two equestrian statues; and finally his last work of importance, the huge monument for the battlefield of the Marne, in France, a group of fiercely protesting figures, carved in stone, towering over sixty feet in height.

During this splendid but fatiguing rush of work, he found time to talk with and aid the struggling students who sought his criticism, and there are many artists who remember his valuable advice, and who will always be his strong admirers.

Many of you are familiar with his great charm, his wit, and handsome, engaging personality. He had a talent for friendship, and was much sought after, but with all these enviable distractions and artistic qualities, he never gave up the habit of constant work, a frenzy of enthusiasm for actual work,—so that he regularly spent his days, from early morning until there was no more light, in his studio.

He lived in Paris for over twenty years, and was highly considered by the French artists, who took him into their hearts as one of themselves. He fully merited his popularity here and abroad, and accepted his renown with infinite good taste.

He received many high honors, among them an honorable mention, at twenty-six, and in 1891 a silver medal, conferred for the first time on an American, at the Paris Salon. A gold medal at Antwerp; the decoration of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the French Government, when he was thirty-three; the Chevalier of St. Michael of Bavaria at Munich; election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1915; and the grand prize of honor at the Paris Exposition.

Contemplating thus, with appreciation, the results of MacMonnies's life work, it is evident that his fame can confidently be left in the critical and just hand of time!