• Sculptor: Carl Conrads
• Dedicated: 1880
• Medium and size: Granite (10 feet), granite pedestal (9.5 feet)
• Location: Central Park, 83rd Street and East Drive

NOTE: This post is adapted from a chapter in Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide. 

About the sculpture

Few public figures have more than one monument in Manhattan. Hamilton has four. Why? Noted orator Chauncey M. Depew explained at the dedication of this sculpture by Conrads:

Hamilton’s reputation as a statesman is beyond the reach of detraction, his service to his country is hardly capable of overestimation, and the placing of his statue at this late day in the chief popular resort of the American Metropolis is a tardy and inadequate recognition of the debt which all generations in the United States will owe him.

From the New York Times report on the dedication, 1880

Conrads’s Hamilton was Manhattan’s first outdoor sculpture of Hamilton, but not the first in the city. Half a century after the Revolutionary War, when New Yorkers finally had the leisure and wherewithal to erect monuments, the first over life-size sculpture produced: a fifteen-foot Hamilton that stood in the Merchant’s Exchange. It was destroyed later the same year in the Great Fire of 1835.

Conrads’s 1880 sculpture was followed by the 1892 statue of Hamilton now at Hamilton Grange (Outdoor Monuments, Chapter 53), a 1908 statue at Columbia University (cf. Jefferson, Outdoor Monuments , Chapter 50), and one created around 1940 for the façade of the Museum of the City of New York (cf. Outdoor Monuments , Chapter 48, on Clinton).

Compare the granite face of Conrads’s sculpture with the bronze face of the Grange Hamilton. You’ll be surprised at the difference the medium and color make in rendering such details as eyelids, cheekbones and hair.

The flecked color of granite makes it more difficult to distinguish details, and its hardness makes rendering nuances of texture impossible. Even the model for Conrads’s Hamilton (at the Museum of American Finance) has a more lively effect because it’s plaster – a more malleable material than granite. I used the model rather than the finished sculpture for the covers of my Hamilton books for precisely that reason.

On the other hand, granite is exceedingly durable. Many Manhattan pedestals carved of it show little deterioration as compared to, say, the soft white marble of the Genius on the Columbus Monument (Outdoor Monuments , Chapter 35).

Philosophical evaluation of a sculpture

In discussing Eleanor Roosevelt (Outdoor Monuments , Chapter 40), I said that evaluating a sculpture philosophically includes judging whether the statement implied in the theme (in her case, “Thinking is important”) was true or false. The other aspect of philosophical evaluation is judging the scope of the theme. Many sculptures of animals are purely decorative arrangements of line and texture. Unless they refer somehow to human experience (a family group, a playful young creature), such sculptures have a more limited scope than representations of humans.

But some sculptures of humans are also narrow in scope, particularly those that record the subject’s physical appearance but fail to capture any of his distinctive characteristics. Conrads’s sculpture of Hamilton shows a late eighteenth-century gentleman about to speak in public, without implying any particular emotion or virtue. Compare it to the Hamilton at Hamilton Grange (Outdoor Monuments , Chapter 53), which shows Hamilton not just performing one of his habitual actions (giving a speech) but bursting with energy, one of his notable traits.

About the subject

Hamilton is a fascinating figure: a highly intelligent politician, businessman, and lawyer, an excellent orator, an efficient and accomplished writer. Theodore Roosevelt (Outdoor Monuments , Chapter 42) praised him as “the most brilliant American statesman who ever lived, possessing the loftiest and keenest intellect of his time.” As Washington’s first secretary of the Treasury (see Outdoor Monuments , Chapter 53), his actions and arguments had an enduring effect on American government.

Like Roosevelt, Hamilton was known as an advocate of “big government.” Roosevelt thought government should paternally protect the welfare of Americans. In his opinion the biggest threat to Americans was big business: large corporations were by nature mendacious and corrupt.

Hamilton advocated a strong central government for a completely different reason. Under the Articles of Confederation, the thirteen states were semi-independent and correspondingly weak. Hamilton wanted a federal government capable of defending the United States and conducting foreign affairs. The policies he instituted during his term as secretary of the Treasury were a bridge between the obsessive and erratic control of business and trade by individual states, and a more uniform, less restrictive policy set at the national level. He is known as the father of capitalism in America not because he was a laissez-faire capitalist himself, but because his policies promoted the growth of capitalism. For more on this, see my Alexander Hamilton: A Brief Biography, sections 4.3.4 (on Hamilton and laissez-faire) and 4.3.5 (on Hamilton’s achievements in the domestic arena). In short: Hamilton deserves credit for setting the new United States government on its financial feet and promoting business to the best of his ability, because in his opinion, doing so would promote the prosperity of all Americans.

More

• For information on Central Park in the 1850s to the 1870s, see my book Central Park: The Early Years.
• For early images of Central Park, see the pages on this site for through 1860, 1861-1865, and 1866-1870.
• 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.
• Want wonderful art delivered weekly to your inbox? Check out my free Sunday Recommendations list and rewards for recurring support: details here.