Blog

This occasional series of blog posts will highlight the most important outdoor sculptures in New York City and provide some historical and art-historical context. To read other blog posts in this series, click on the New York City Sculpture tag. For photos of all outdoor sculptures in New York City in chronological order, see my Instagram page (in progress since August 2019).

This post is available as a video at https://youtu.be/I0r2-b2EP5g.

In the first post in this series, we saw sculptures of animals and politicians. In the second, we saw our first military and literary heroes. The third post included a list of memorials to the Civil War. This week we look at figures from the early history of New York City and the United States.

You may be wondering why we’re starting with a survey of sculptures by subject rather than merely looking at changes in style and important sculptors. Answer: the changes in subject are an important part of the history of sculpture in New York City over the course of a century and a half. For example: sculptures of the Founding Fathers are common in the late nineteenth century, but become very rare around the time of FDR’s presidency (1933-1945). We’ll see what replaces them.

Sculptures commemorating the early history of New York City and the United States

When the United States was just short of a century old, sculptures began to be erected in New York City that honored a more distant past. Aside from the equestrian sculpture of George Washington in Union Square (1856), the earliest was an 1869 sculpture of Columbus by Emma Stebbins (1815-1882). Intended for Central Park, it eventually ended up at Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn. In the 1890s, for the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s first voyage, two more sculptures of Columbus were erected: one at Columbus Circle (1892) and one in Central Park (1894). A large bust was erected in 1925 in the Bronx, and a life-size figure of young Columbus in Queens in 1941.

1869

 This is the first sculpture of an American Indian to be erected in New York. Not surprisingly, it was by John Quincy Adams Ward, who believed that American sculpture should show American subjects, without Neoclassical trappings. Indian Hunter and Ward’s Seventh Regiment Memorial of the same year (see part 3) were the first sculptures by an American artist to be erected in Central Park, and Ward’s first major commissions. More here.

1873

Continuing the historical subjects: the late nineteenth century also saw a spate of sculptures of the Founding Fathers. Aside from Washington in Union Square, the earliest was a sculpture of the Marquis de Lafayette, also in Union Square. Lafayette was commissioned by the French as a thank-you to New Yorkers for supplies sent during the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871. It was the work of Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, later famous for the Statue of Liberty. New York City has a second Bartholdi sculpture of Lafayette (with Washington) from 1890. Everyone’s favorite fighting Frenchman also appears on a relief by Daniel Chester French from 1917, and in the 1932 bronze copy of Houdon’s portrait we saw in part 1 of this series.

1880

A few years later, a sculpture of Alexander Hamilton was placed in Central Park, near the Metropolitan Museum. It was commissioned and donated by his son John Church Hamilton, who devoted decades to writing a seven-volume biography of his father. Over the next sixty years, three more monuments were raised to Hamilton: by Partridge in 1892 and 1908, and by Weinman ca. 1940. See this post.

1883

This Washington stands on the steps of Federal Hall, which was built on the site where Washington was inaugurated as first president of the United States in 1789. It’s one of John Quincy Adams Ward’s best works. It’s also one of the few works by Ward that has a Neoclassical element – behind Washington is a fasces, Roman symbol of the government’s power.

New York City has six life-size sculptures of George Washington – seven, if you count the two figures on the Washington Arch separately. The only other figures that approach that number are Columbus and Alexander Hamilton, with four full-size sculptures each. Other sculptures of Washington are by Brown, 1856 (see part 2), Bartholdi (1890, with Lafayette), Shrady (1907), MacNeil and Calder (1916 and 1918, on the Washington Arch), and De Lue (1967).

1890

Said MacMonnies of this sculpture of Nathan Hale, one of the heroes of the Revolutionary War: “I wanted to make something that would set the bootblacks and little clerks around here thinking, something that would make them want to be somebody and find life worth living.” This was first major commission for Frederick William MacMonnies (1863-1937), who became a prominent sculptor in the 1890s.

Sculptures of other historical figures active before 1800

Here are the other sculptures commemorating the early days of New York and the United States. See also this page.

• Giovanni da Verrazzano, by Ettore Ximenes,1909 – first European to sail into New York Harbor (April 17, 1524)
• The Pilgrim, by John Quincy Adams Ward, 1885 – honors the English who arrived in New England in 1620
• New York in Infancy and New York in Revolutionary Times, by Philip Martiny, 1907 – allegorical figures
• Peter Stuyvesant, by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, 1936 – the last director-general of New Amsterdam; forced to surrender it to the English in 1664
• Abraham de Peyster, by George Edwin Bissell, 1896 – merchant and government official in the late 17th century, soon after Manhattan was taken over by the English
• Benjamin Franklin, by Ernst Plassmann, ca. 1872
• Thomas Jefferson, by William Ordway Partridge, 1914

More

• My Instagram account shows every outdoor sculpture in New York City, since in chronological order, with a short blurb on the subject and/or artist of each.
• 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 my Patreon page (free or by subscription): details here.