List_of_American_sculptors_exhibited_at_the_1893_World's_Columbian_Exposition

List of American sculptors exhibited at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition

List of American sculptors exhibited at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition

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Sculpture could be found at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in various different places and serving a diverse number of functions. The works displayed in the specially designed sculpture exhibition halls tended to be by the better known artists of the day but the visitors to the Expo did not need to enter the buildings to find sculpture. The grounds, especially around the lagoon areas and decorating the various bridges were liberally sprinkled with sculpture, most of it made out of staff, an impermanent material. Also to be found were a number of fountains. Another form of sculpture at the Fair, also made of staff, was the architectural sculpture that adorned a large number of the buildings.

United States Section, Court of Statuary, Palace of Fine Arts. Elwell's Charles Dickens and Little Nell in the right foreground

Architectural sculpture

But here it might be well to say something of the material of which they are constructed, the new and wonderful "staff." It has the properties of both common plaster and cement, and can be worked into any required design; in hardening it shows an ivory-like surface, which, however, can be colored in any desired tint. Thus the most ornate architectural effects are produced, and all the buildings, being covered with this decorative substance, present the appearance of veritable palaces. For the designs, etc., it is modeled into plates the required size and joined invisibly, and it is estimated that about 500,000 of these pieces have been used in the large buildings alone.[1]: 452–53 

Sixteen bridges spanned the lagoons that meandered through the fairgrounds. Four statues of native American mammals, also made of staff, decorated the piers at each end of a bridge.[1]: 453 

The sculptors and their works

More information Artist, Works Exhibited ...

See also

References

  1. [1]
    Benjamin C. Truman, History of the World's Fair, Being a Complete Description of the World's Columbian Exposition from Its Inception (Chicago & Philadelphia: Mammoth Publishing Company, 1893).
  2. [2]
    A.B. Farquhar, Catalogue of the Exhibits of the State of Pennsylvania and of Pennsylvanians at the World's Columbian Exposition (Clarence M. Busch, State Printer of Pennsylvania, July 1893), p. 267.
  3. [3]
    The Little Architect, from SIRIS.
  4. [4]
    The Struggle for Work, from SIRIS.
  5. [5]
    Theseus, from SIRIS.
  6. [6]
    Bust of Hiawatha, from MMA.
  7. [7]
    Maude Muller, from SIRIS.
  8. [8]
    Caestus, from MMA.
  9. [9]
    Bust of Thomas Eakins, from SIRIS.
  10. [10]
    Bust of R. S. Gifford, from SIRIS.
  11. [11]
    Photographs of the World's Fair: An elaborate collection of photographs of the buildings grounds and exhibits of the World's Columbian Exposition with a special description of The Famous Midway Plaisance, The Werner Company. Chicago, 1893, p. 97.
  12. [12]
    William Shakespeare, from SIRIS.
  13. [13]
    America, from SIRIS.
  14. [14]
    Miriam, from SIRIS.
  15. [15]
    Mato Wanartaka, Chief of the Sioux, from SIRIS.
  16. [16]
    Bust of Henry Watterson, from SIRIS.
  17. [17]
    The Cosmopolitan (magazine), vol. 15, no. 5 (September 1893), p. 561.
  18. [18]
    Leif Ericson, from SIRIS.
  19. [19]
    Bust of Lucy Stone, from SIRIS.
  20. [20]
    Bust of Harriet Beecher Stowe, from SIRIS.
  21. [21]
    Rossiter Johnson, ed., A History of the World's Columbian Exposition (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1897), p. 249.
  • Carr, Carolyn Kinder, et al., Revisiting the White City: American Art at the 1893 World's Fair, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. 1993 pp. 356–383
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