Category Archives: Monuments and Statuary

Remembrance Day

11 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by in Monuments and Statuary, Washington, D.C., WW1

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Today is Veterans Day.  A few months back I posted the piece below about a potential WW1 memorial on the National Mall. I will still believe it when I see it, but various powers that be are still trying to make it a reality. This weekend William N. Brown, president of the Association of the Oldest Inhabitants of the District of Columbia, wrote this piece in the Washington Post offering some possibilities. If nothing else, it gives me a chance to mention the Association of the Oldest Inhabitants of the District of Columbia. Whatever happens on the Mall, I hope he remember the Great War in a meaningful way.

Happy Veterans Day.

In the area where my brother lives in France Great War monuments are as ubiquitous as Civil War monuments are here in the United States. Every town square has its bronze doughboy representing the young men from that locale who mort pour la France. World War One monuments are less common here in America but one does see them on a fairly regular basis. We have been spending so much time on the Civil War sesquicentennial that the upcoming 100th anniversary of the First World War has been pushed to the back burner. Ready or not it is coming in just two short years. It will be an opportunity to challenge many of the assumptions we have about that conflict, just as the CW 150th has done for the War of the Rebellion. If you ever have a chance I strongly recommend a visit to the National World War One Museum in Kansas City; if you really have a chance take in the Historial de La Grande Guerre in Perrone. Both will change your perspective of this pivotal event in 20th century history.

I don’t know if the National Mall needs another monument but earlier this week Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) proposed the construction of a national World War One memorial to be built in Constitution Gardens near the Reflecting Pool. The proposal has a long road before reaching fruition because of a 2003 law prohibiting new construction on the Mall. Any exemption would mean setting a precedent. Washington already has a WW1 memorial, located in Pershing Park, but it is a local memorial dedicated to the soldiers from the District who fought in the conflict. It will be interesting to see if this proposal goes anywhere. Monuments take time, sometimes decades, to go from drawing board to ribbon cutting. I doubt this would take that long if it indeed comes to pass. 2014 is probably too soon. Perhaps five years, in time for the 100th anniversary of American involvement in April 2017, is more realistic. It will be interesting to see if this goes anywhere.

(image/Thomas R Machnitzki)

A museum Monday

08 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by in Monuments and Statuary, Museums

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Young Husband: First Marketing, Lilly Martin Spencer (1854)

I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art today for Holiday Monday. I had the museum almost entirely to myself, in part I suspect because many folks worked today and those who didn’t were outdoors enjoying the cool weather. The Holiday Mondays on which the Met tends to get the most traffic are Martin Luther King Jr and Presidents Days, when more people are off and everyone is trying to find something to do indoors because it is so cold out. Someone at the museum told me that next year the museum is going to be open every Monday, as I believe if once used to be. I cannot get enough of the New American Wing. I love the confluence of art and history, especially in the antebellum period before photography when realism was more important for our understanding of society.

I was at a public function last Wednesday where someone mentioned the beautiful Augustus Saint-Gaudens Farragut statue in Madison Square Park. She had recently read David McCullough’s The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris and was especially moved by McCullough’s take on the sculptor’s efforts to bring the artwork to reality. (The short version is here.) This led to a discussion of how much thought, tim, and effort artists expend on and for their work. That conversation was going through my mind when I checked out Gauden’s mock-up for the larger piece:

Admiral David Glasgow Farragut
Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1879-1880)

Speaking of museums, in late spring I mentioned a trip a friend and I took to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The clip below is from an exhibit that opened this week at the New-York Historical Society about New York City during World War 2. I have always been entranced by this time period, partially because of my love for Woody Allen movies and Pete Hamill’s stories and non-fiction. Both saw the war and the city through the prism of young boys’ eyes. I have this one penciled in for Black Friday. It is hard to believe Thanksgiving is just six weeks away.

(images courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, painting (top) promised gift)

Remembering the Great War

14 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by in Monuments and Statuary, Washington, D.C., WW1

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In the area where my brother lives in France Great War monuments are as ubiquitous as Civil War monuments are here in the United States. Every town square has its bronze doughboy representing the young men from that locale who mort pour la France. World War One monuments are less common here in America but one does see them on a fairly regular basis. We have been spending so much time on the Civil War sesquicentennial that the upcoming 100th anniversary of the First World War has been pushed to the back burner. Ready or not it is coming in just two short years. It will be an opportunity to challenge many of the assumptions we have about that conflict, just as the CW 150th has done for the War of the Rebellion. If you ever have a chance I strongly recommend a visit to the National World War One Museum in Kansas City; if you really have a chance take in the Historial de La Grande Guerre in Perrone. Both will change your perspective of this pivotal event in 20th century history.

I don’t know if the National Mall needs another monument but earlier this week Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) proposed the construction of a national World War One memorial to be built in Constitution Gardens near the Reflecting Pool. The proposal has a long road before reaching fruition because of a 2003 law prohibiting new construction on the Mall. Any exemption would mean setting a precedent. Washington already has a WW1 memorial, located in Pershing Park, but it is a local memorial dedicated to the soldiers from the District who fought in the conflict. It will be interesting to see if this proposal goes anywhere. Monuments take time, sometimes decades, to go from drawing board to ribbon cutting. I doubt this would take that long if it indeed comes to pass. 2014 is probably too soon. Perhaps five years, in time for the 100th anniversary of American involvement in April 2017, is more realistic. It will be interesting to see if this goes anywhere.

(image/Thomas R Machnitzki)

Alternative Eisenhower

12 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by in Dwight D. Eisenhower, Monuments and Statuary, Washington, D.C.

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In the spring of 2011, the National Civic Art Society (NCAS) and the Institute for Classical Architecture & Art (ICA&A) Mid-Atlantic Chapter invited classical architects and artists to engage in a competition to design a counterproposal to Frank Gehry’s design of a national monument to President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Next week the results go on display in Washington. The exhibit kicks off with a reception on Tuesday the 17th, and will then be on display until September. Conveniently it is close to the Union Station metro station. Unfortunately it is behind a paywall, but Vanity Fair has a piece by Paul Goldberger in the August issue about the Eisenhower memorial saga. The controversy has been heating u recently, with Congress threatening to withhold funds from the current incarnation of the memorial. I will be in DC next week but it doesn’t seem I will have time to catch the presentation. I am going to do everything I can to see this before the summer’s end. Next week I do hope to finally see the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial on the Mall, which I have been eager to see since its unveiling.

The NCAS competition results can also be viewed online.

(image courtesy National Civic Art Society)

Bon weekend

17 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by in Monuments and Statuary, Museums, New York City, Washington, D.C.

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Hey everybody, I am off to Washington, DC tomorrow for President’s Day weekend. I love the nation’s capitol a little more with every visit. It is especially meaningful to be there for American-specific holidays. I was there last year for Memorial Day.

I am taking the Boltbus and am first going to visit the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum, which is conveniently across the street from Union Station. The NPM has an exhibit of Lincoln certified plate proofs that I have wanted to see for awhile. Their website says its closing in “Summer 2012,” which doesn’t leave much wiggle room if one is trying to plan ahead. I have not been to the NPM in about seven years. Also on the agenda is the Corcoran Gallery of Art for the Shadows of History: Photographs of the Civil War from the Collection of Julia J. Norrell. It is not all Civil War. The real reason for the trip is to see my niece for the first time. Her three month birthday will be tomorrow.

If you live in the Big Apple, or are here for the weekend, remember that President’s Day is a Holiday Monday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Last month I wrote about my visit to the New American Wing on the day of its re-opening after a four year renovation. Among other treasures in the maginficent new galleries are numerous works by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. When I visited last month I saw his Standing Lincoln. As it turns out this was a recent purchase by the Met, who announced the new acquisition on Lincoln’s Birthday this past Sunday. Something tells me Harold Holzer had a hand in this. Thankfully.

If you are looking to read the book on Lincoln as depicted in bronze and stone check out James Percoco’s Summers with Lincoln: Looking for the Man in the Monuments, which I bought at the National Gallery of Art the day after I proposed to my wife in a Washington hotel room.

An added bonus of the visiting the Met would be the chance to see the Romare Bearden exhibit, which I am going to scramble to catch before it closes on March 4.

Whatever you choose to do, have a safe and enjoyable weekend.

(image/1890 plate proof, Smithsonian National Postal Museum)

Art on the Mall, cont’d

14 Saturday Jan 2012

Posted by in Briefly noted, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Monuments and Statuary, Washington, D.C.

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Frank Gehry’s proposed Eisenhower Memorial

In November I posted about the controversy surrounding the Eisenhower Memorial scheduled for groundbreaking early this year. The Frank Gehry designed monument will be directly on the Mall, near the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and within easy view of the Capitol Building itself, some prime real estate to say the least. I wrote my masters thesis on Eisenhower and believe him to be worthy of this distinction. Public art is almost always fraught with controversy, something no one understood better that Ike himself. Speaking at the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Museum of Modern Art in 1954 President Eisenhower noted that “as long as artists are free to create with sincerity and conviction, there will be healthy controversy and progress in art.” Controversy can indeed be healthy, moving good ideas forward and pushing bad ones aside. Still, it is this writer’s humble opinion that the design does not suit the subject or the site. Modernity itself did not intimidate Dwight Eisenhower, but the avant garde memorial does not align with how the general and president lived and saw the world around him. Eisenhower’s family has become more vocal in their opposition. Grandson David stepped down from the Commission in December and last week the family issued a letter to the National Capital Planning Commission expressing its disapproval. It will be interesting to see if the projects moves ahead in the face of this opposition.

In other news concerning memorials on the National Mall, the Department of the Interior will change a quotation on the Martin Luther King, Jr. monument to better reflect Dr. King’s words. As currently written the inscription has King saying

“I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.”

In a February 1968 sermon know as the “Drum Major Instinct,” King said

“Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.”

Critics, including Maya Angelou, believe the paraphrase does not accurately reflect King’s statement. The Park Service will consult with the King family and scholars to create a new inscription.

(image/Eisenhower Memorial Commission)

Prospect Park’s Lincoln, cont’d

19 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by in Monuments and Statuary

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Last week I posted a brief comment about the controversial efforts to move the Lincoln statue in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park to a more prominent position in Grand Army Plaza. The controversy is that doing so as planned would entail moving an already existing memorial (below) to renowned physician Dr. Alexander Skene. The story has crossed the Pond to Skene’s native Scotland.

Alexander Skene: Civil War physician, romance novelist, finder of the G spot

(image/David Shankbone)

MLK Memorial, cont’d

12 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by in Monuments and Statuary, Washington, D.C.

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Early last month I posted about the recently dedicated monument to MLK Jr. now on the National Mall. I still have not seen the work created by the Roma Design Group and am still withholding judgment. Reviews, however, have been mixed. Michael J. Crosbie of The Atlantic believes it a failure. Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post is more generous. I’m looking forward to seeing it for myself this winter.

(image/NPS)