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I’ve posted on Brookgreen Gardens before (see here), cropping the photos to show just the sculptures. But one of the marvelous features of Brookgreen is that many of the sculptures have a small garden or another area specifically designed to set them off. In this series of posts, with photos taken in early June when the gardens were full of flowers, I’m trying to give a sense of those gorgeous settings.

The Apollo of Dogs, 2006

By Louise Peterson. A pair of Great Danes guard the entrance to an outdoor gallery of small sculptures. One of the dogs has natural ears, the other (in the distance) cropped ears. Casts of this pair are available for purchase here.

Boy and Chickens, 1896

By Harriet Hyatt Mayor (1868-1960), Anna Hyatt Huntington’s sister. See also her even more charming Girl with Fish in this post.

Orphans, 1931

Pietro Montana (1890-1978) sculpted the striking Dawn of Glory monument in Highland Park, Queens (Jamaica Avenue at Cleveland Street), honoring local men who died in World War I. When I visited Dawn of Glory last time, it was in the middle of a construction zone; I’ll be taking more photos of it once the crazy dies down in NYC. Meanwhile, here’s a charming small sculpture.

The Sun Vow, 1899

A larger version of this work by Hermon A. MacNeil (1866-1947) is in the Metropolitan Museum’s American Wing Courtyard. According to the Met’s site, “While living in Chicago in the early 1890s, MacNeil had learned of a rite of passage that captured his imagination: before a boy on the threshold of manhood could be accepted as a warrior, he was required to shoot an arrow directly into the sun. If the chieftain judging the boy’s prowess was so blinded by the sun’s rays that he could not follow the flight of the arrow, it was said to have gone ‘out of sight,’ and the youth had passed the test.”

In New York City, McNeil also sculpted Washington as commander-in-chief for the Washington Arch, and several figures at the Bronx Hall of Fame.

The End of the Trail, 1915

James Earle Fraser (1876-1953) sculpted the Theodore Roosevelt that is (used to be?) in front of the American Museum of Natural History on Central Park West. He also created the noted explorers and naturalists high above the street on the AMNH’s facade (Daniel Boone, John James Audubon, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark) and the array of wild animals on the frieze flanking the AMNH’s entrance. See this post for all of those.

Young Diana, ca. 1924

By Anna Hyatt Huntington. I like this one better than Huntington’s Diana of the Chase, which will appear in a forthcoming post on Brookgreen. So much energy and movement! Almost a Sun Vow moment, although she apparently gets to judge for herself whether the arrow goes high enough.

More

• For more of my posts on Brookgreen, click here. The official site is here.
• 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 print and Kindle formats.
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