James McNeill Whistler, Bronx Hall of Fame

  • Date: 1930
  • Sculptor: Frederick MacMonnies
  • Medium & size: Bronze bust
  • Location: Hall of Fame, Bronx Community College, 2155 University Avenue, Bronx

MacMonnies, Whistler, 1930. Hall of Fame of Great Americans, Bronx. Photo copyright © 2019 Dianne L. Durante

Whistler

Whistler (July 10, 1834-July 17, 1903) is most famous for his 1871 painting of his mother – but since he was averse to sentimentality and fond of analogies with music, he entitled it Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1.

Whister Quotes

  • I maintain that two and two would continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five.
  • You shouldn’t say it is not good. You should say, you do not like it; and then, you know, you’re perfectly safe.
  • To say of a picture, as is often said in its praise, that it shows great and earnest labour, is to say that it is incomplete and unfit for view.
  • It takes a long time for a man to look like his portrait.
  • An artist’s career always begins tomorrow.

Frederick MacMonnies

MacMonnies was a shooting star in the American art world of the 1890s. A student of Augustus Saint Gaudens, he rocketed to fame with Nathan Hale (one of my favorite New York sculptures) and with the Bacchante and Infant Faun that was banned from Boston’s Public Library. (It’s now on display in the American Wing Courtyard of the Metropolitan Museum, along with several of MacMonnies’ other early works.) For the Columbian Exposition in 1892-1893 (see the Columbus Monument), MacMonnies designed the enormous Barge of State, which sat on a pedestal 150 feet wide. In the same decade, MacMonnies created the bronze sculptures for the great arch commemorating the Civil War that stands at the northern end of Prospect Park, Brooklyn.

Soldiers group from the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Arch, Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn

With sales of small-scale reproductions of his works, MacMonnies’s income in the 1890s reached $300,000 – probably $3 million in present-day dollars.

But as the twentieth century opened, MacMonnies lost his fire: Beauty and Truth on the facade of the New York Public Library are lifeless and insipid, as is the much-maligned Civic Virtue, banished from City Hall to Kew Gardens and recently from there to the Green-wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

MacMonnies, Civic Virtue, now in the Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn. Photo copyright © 2015 Dianne L. Durante

More

  • For more on MacMonnies’ career, see my Artist-Entrepreneurs: Saint Gaudens, MacMonnies, and Parrish.
  • 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. More here.
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