This 1913 Carl Schurz monument, at 116th Street and Morningside Drive, is by sculptor Karl Bitter, who worked with the architect Henry Bacon. The monument consists of a standing bronze portrait of Schurz in the center of a granite exedra (curved bench) with carved reliefs framed by two ornamental bronze luminaries. The monument sits within a large brick-paved plaza projecting from a promontory. Bitter received his commission for the monument just after Schurz died in 1906.The foundry was JNO Williams, New York. Studio assistants and associates of Bitter may have worked on the side and central stone relief carvings which relate to Schurz's social concerns about African-American slaves and Native Americans. The low-relief carvings in granite were made by the Bronx-based Piccirilli Brothers studios after clay and plaster models by Bitter. The panels are stylized, based on ancient Archaic Greek and Vienna Secessionist art. Bitter had traveled to Greece and Vienna, Austria.
Karl Bitter
(b. 1867 Vienna – d. NYC 1915)
was born in Vienna and studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts before coming to the United States in 1889.He found work at an architecture firm. Many of his subsequent bas-relief sculptural works decorate large, architectural projects and buildings in New York City. Bitter provided sculpture for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Trinity Church in New York City. He carved an allegorical bas-relief 'The Spirit of Transportation' in 1895 for the Philadelphia Broad Street Station (moved to the 30th Street Station in 1933). He made sculptures for the Biltmore Estate, designed by his friend Richard Morris Hunt, for the Vanderbilts in Asheville, NC. Bitter was chief of sculpture for the Panama Pacific Exposition (1915) in San Francisco. At the same time, he designed the Pulitzer Fountain in front of New York City's Plaza Hotel (Grand Army Plaza, Fifth Avenue and 59th Street), but he died in an accident before it was installed. He designed the Henry Hudson Memorial Column and statue (Bronx, NY, Henry Hudson Memorial Park) commemorating the early Dutch explorer (also unfinished at his death). His chief student, Karl Heinrich Gruppe, finished the Henry Hudson work.
Piccirilli Brothers
(late 19th to mid 20th century)
— sculptors. In 1888, Giuseppe (Joseph) Piccirilli (b. 1844 – d. 1910), a well-known stone carver in Massa Carrara (stone quarries in Tuscany), brought his family to New York. The entire family, father and six sons — Attilio (b. 1868 – d. 1945), Furio, Ferrucio, Getulio (Giulio), Masaniello, and Orazio — were trained as marble cutters and carvers. Attilio and his brothers set up a sculpture studio at 142nd Street in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx, New York. The studio grew into a complex of several buildings and adjacent row houses during their combined careers.The Piccirillis' workshop garnered them commissions to carve other artists' designs. They carved marble sculptures designed by John Quincy Adams Ward, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and R.I. Aitken. The Piccirilli studio won the commission for the monument to the Battleship Maine (at the southwest corner of Central Park, dedicated in 1913). This was followed by a more important commission — to carve the statue of Lincoln designed by Daniel Chester French for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC (dedicated 1922). Attilio designed the World War I monument in Albany, NY, and made it in their workshop. In 1931, Attilio carved a bust of Thomas Jefferson for the state capitol in Richmond, VA. He modeled the bust after an earlier version by Jean-Antoine Houdon. The family continued to create the exterior sculptures for New York landmarks: the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the New York Stock Exchange; the pediment sculptures for the U. S. Customs House at Battery Park; the lions in front of the New York Public Library; City Hall Park; and a frieze for the Life Building at Rockefeller Center. The brothers, and particularly Attilio, were respected members of the Italian-American community; Attilio dined with Enrico Caruso, the famous opera tenor, at the home of Fiorello LaGuardia. He was president of the Italian-American Art Association, a fellow of the National Academy of Design, and founded the Leonardo da Vinci Art School, to which he devoted great energy over the years. By the 1930s, the number of sculpture commissions dwindled, in part due to the Depression, but also because of changing taste. Public sculpture simply fell out of favor. The 'family seat' in the USA was their home and workshop at 467 E. 142nd St. As was the practice at the time, the extended family lived together at this location. Attilio and his brother Getulio died within three days of each other in 1945. The Piccirilli studio was demolished sometime in the 1960s, and the documents and possessions of the family have disappeared.
Carl Schurz
(b. 1829 Liblar by Cologne, Germany – d. NY 1906)
was a newspaper editor, general and social reformer who opposed slavery and advocated fairness for Native Americans. As a student at the University of Bonn in Germany, Schurz was a radical. He participated in the 1848 German Revolution, aimed at deposing Frederick William IV of Prussia. The revolt failed, and Schurz was forced to flee to Switzerland. Before emigrating to the U.S. in 1852, he spent time in France and England. He lived in Philadelphia, Wisconsin, Detroit, and St. Louis before arriving in New York City in 1881. He earned a law degree. He was an idealist and a dreamer.In 1856, his wife, Margarethe Schurz (d. 1876), founded the first kindergarten in America. A Republican, he backed Lincoln in 1860. After Lincoln won the election, Schurz was appointed minister to Spain in 1861. He worked to support the Union cause in the Civil War. He negotiated with European governments on Lincoln's behalf. In 1862, Schurz was made a brigadier general and placed in command of the 3rd Division of the Army of Virginia. He fought in the battles of Bull Run and Fredericksburg. He was appointed major general and replaced Franz Sigel. He later fought at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. After the war, Schurz became a correspondent for the New York Tribune in Washington, DC. A Republican, Schurz was elected to the Senate from Missouri and served from 1869-1871. As a radical, he supported Horace Greeley against Ulysses S. Grant in the presidential race; Grant won. In 1877, President Rutherford Hayes appointed Schurz as his Secretary of the Interior; he served until 1875. Schurz reformed the civil service and worked for the rights and welfare of Indians through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In 1881, Schurz returned to journalism as managing editor of the New York Evening Post. He also wrote for Harper's Weekly and The Nation. He published books including 'The Life of Henry Clay' (1887) and 'Abraham Lincoln' (1891). Schurz campaigned against the Spanish-American War. He denounced the United States' acquisition of the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. When Schurz died, the lawyer and former ambassador to Great Britain, Joseph H. Choate, formed a memorial committee and raised $93,000 in donations towards a monument for Schurz. A memorial service for Schurz filled Carnegie Hall. It was a social event with an orchestra; businessmen, artists, civic leaders and politicians were in attendance. Booker T. Washington, former President Grover Cleveland, and others spoke. Schurz was called 'the greatest American of foreign birth.' He was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Tarrytown, NY.
Henry Bacon
(b. 1866 Watseka, IL – d. NYC 1924)
was the architect who designed the Lincoln Memorial. The son of a civil engineer, he studied at the University of Illinois for only one year. In 1885, he moved to Boston to become a draughtsman for the architectural firm of Chamberlin & Whidden. In 1888, he moved to McKim, Mead & White, working as a draughtsman and perspectivist. In 1889, Bacon won the Rotch Traveling Scholarship, which enabled him to go to France, Italy, Greece and Turkey for two years. He returned to the McKim, Mead & White office in 1891 and became McKim's chief design assistant.The following year, he represented the firm on the construction site of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Among other projects, he worked on the design of McKim's Rhode Island State House (1891–1903) in Providence. In 1897, Bacon formed a partnership with James Brite (1865–1942), a colleague from the McKim office, with whom he had traveled in Europe. Brite & Bacon specialized in the design of public buildings; they entered competitions, including those for the Philadelphia Art Museum in 1895 and the New York Public Library in 1897; and executed designs for public libraries in Jersey City, NJ (1898–1900), and Madison, CT (1899–1900). Eventually Bacon practiced alone. Bacon worked with a number of sculptors on the design of monuments and memorials. He made the settings for several monuments in which Augustus Saint-Gaudens did the figures, including: the memorial to James McNeill Whistler (1903–7); US Military Academy, West Point, NY; the monuments to Charles Stewart Parnell (1900–11), Dublin; Marcus Alonzo Hanna (1905–8), Cleveland, OH, and the Christopher Lyman Magee fountain-stele (1905–8) Pittsburgh, PA. With Daniel Chester (French designed the figures) Bacon designed the settings for the following memorials: the Melvin brothers ('Mourning Victory,' 1897–1907), Concord, MA; Spencer Trask (The Spirit of Life, 1913–15), Saratoga Springs, NY; Abraham Lincoln (1909–12), Lincoln, NB; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (c. 1913), Cambridge, MA; and the Marquis de Lafayette monument (1916–17) Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY. He also designed the lampposts for Central Park in New York. For his Lincoln Memorial, he received a gold medal from the American Institute of Architects.
|
1) Columbia University Map [37]
