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This ten-part series is based on a walking tour I offered some years ago. Click “NYC walking tour” in the tag cloud for others in the series. Look for videos on my YouTube channel.

In this segment, we talk about a controversial sculpture that used to be in this neighborhood. It’s a good illustration of the importance of a sculpture’s setting, and of the limits of what setting can do. The sculpture was designed to stand in the big open space just south of the main entrance to City Hall, a block down the street from the Surrogate’s Court.

What’s this sculpture about?

For Martiny’s sculptures in front of Surrogate’s Court, we were able to figure out the subject based on the details and the location. What can we learn from looking at this figure?

The main figure is fifteen feet tall: almost three times my height. He seems young, strong, and confident.

His face is serious or expressionless. He holds a sword.

Behind his back he holds something … but even in person, it’s not clear if it’s a rope, a plant, or something else.

Let’s look at what’s at his feet. There are two female torsos. Instead of legs, they have scaly tails that twine around the man’s feet, but don’t touch him.

One of these mermaids has an octopus for hair. The other is holding a skull, with her finger through the eye socket. Near them, at the man’s feet, is a shipwreck. These two mermaids clearly represent something evil, but it’s not obvious what.

So far, then, the message seems to be: a good guy has triumphed over evil. But we can’t get any further than that from the sculpture itself.

According to the sculptor, Frederick MacMonnies, this work represents “The Triumph of Civic Virtue.” It was intended to show good politics triumphing over vice and corruption, with the main figure holding behind his back the net that the evil mermaids tried to use to ensnare him.

[The man tries] with single minded energy … to stand upright and hold up the sword of law [while] freeing himself almost unconsciously from the snares thrown about him. He looks out into the distance so concentrated on his great ideal, that he does not even see the temptation … but … steps out triumphantly and places his foot on a firm rock.

MacMonnies, in a New York Herald article of 3/23/1922 (quoted in Mary Smart, A Flight to Fame, p. 256, and p. 272 n. 2)

New York politics in the late nineteenth century was notoriously corrupt: it was the era of Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed. (See the Mitchell Memorial for more on that.) “The Triumph of Civic Virtue” refers to the fact that the influence of New York City’s political machines and political bosses had been much reduced by the early twentieth century. The sculpture was created specifically for the open plaza in front of City Hall: its creation was delayed, in fact, while a two huge old government buildings were torn down to create the open plaza. But the sculpture doesn’t convey that message clearly. Even in its original setting, the meaning was unclear.

Frederick MacMonnies was capable of excellent work. We’ll see his Hale later on this walking tour. Civic Virtue, however, isn’t one of his best works. It did become his most controversial, which is why it’s no longer in front of City Hall.

A Brief History of Civic Virtue

MacMonnies began sculpting Civic Virtue in 1909, before the first World War broke out. Due to demolition of buildings and subway construction near City Hall, it wasn’t installed until 1922. What happened meanwhile? In 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, granting women the right to vote.

With an eye to all those shiny new votes, New York City Mayor John Hylan showed a photo of Civic Virtue to a women’s group before it was set in place. The women were outraged. They decried the sculpture as sexist: a man trampling women. The creatures at the man’s feet aren’t human women (although they’re female) and he’s not touching them: but why quibble about details in an emotional political issue? Despite their objections, the sculpture was erected in front of City Hall in 1922, in a huge fountain basin.

The criticism of Civic Virtue weighed heavily on MacMonnies. In A Flight with Fame, the first full-length biography of MacMonnies, Mary Smart describes the final months of his life, fifteen years after the dedication of this sculpture:

In an obsessive effort to find out what had gone wrong with his Civic Virtue and possibly correct it, MacMonnies wrapped himself in sweaters and scarves and worked in his cold studio during the opening months of 1937. He built “a large group depicting the female (as a symbol) rising above the ignorance and brute strength of man.” He never finished the sculpture. He contracted pneumonia and died on the night of March 22, 1937.

Smart, A Flight to Fame, p. 270

In 1941, under Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, Civic Virtue was banished to Queens. There is stood in a smaller fountain basin, on the grounds of the Queens County Courthouse – although it was too far away for the government connection to be obvious.

In Queens, Civic Virtue was still often condemned as sexist. The borough’s politicians allocated no money for maintenance. By the early twenty-first century it was vandalized, disintegrating, and covered in pigeons and pigeon droppings. One Queens politician suggested it be sold off on Craigslist.

In late 2012, the sculpture was quietly hauled out of Queens. In 2013, without fanfare, Civic Virtue was installed in the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. It has been cleaned and repaired. It will never be a lovely sculpture, but it does look better than it has for decades. Unfortunately, the huge fountain basin on which it used to sit has been left in Queens, so the mermaids and shipwreck are bereft of their “ocean”.

Politics and portrait sculptures

In my opinion, it’s not the proper business of government to commission or to own sculptures. But if it owns sculptures and isn’t willing to maintain them, it should sell them off rather than letting them crumble to dust. I’m glad Civic Virtue ended up in the Green-Wood, rather than slowly eroding in Queens. For more on this, see my essay “Politics and Portrait Sculptures.”

Next week: part 3 of the walking tour, with the first of two media moguls.

More

• For more on MacMonnies, see Artist-Entrepreneurs: Saint Gaudens, MacMonnies, and Parrish. Works by MacMonnies on this site: Hale, Stranahan, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Arch, Slocum, and in the Bronx Hall of Fame, Whistler and Newcomb.
• For even more on MacMonnies, see Mary Smart, A Flight with Fame: The Life and Art of Frederick MacMonnies (Madison, CT, 1996), especially pp. 232, 255-7, and 270. It includes hundreds of images, including archival photos of plaster casts, letters, etc.
• In Getting More Enjoyment from Sculpture You Love, I demonstrate a method for looking at sculptures in detail, in depth, and on your own. Learn to enjoy your favorite sculptures more, and find new favorites. Available on Amazon in print and Kindle formats.
• Want wonderful art delivered weekly to your inbox? Check out my free Sunday Recommendations list and rewards for recurring support: details here.