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Simon Bolivar
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by Michael P. Reed |
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The equestrian monument of Simon Bolivar is unquestionably Sally James Farnham’s magnum opus. It is an imposing work that took five long years to complete and is regarded as the crowning achievement of her long and varied career. Farnham’s achievement cannot be overstated for the monument’s history is a colorful tale of meeting great odds head on and overcoming professional setbacks in order to succeed where others had failed.
In 1884 the government of Venezuela presented the City of New York with a bronze statue of Simon Bolivar. The gift was meant as a “token of admiration from the southern republic to her sister in the North.” Bolivar was considered the George Washington of the southern hemisphere, liberating not only Venezuela, but also Columbia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia from Spanish rule, instilling democracy as the governing power in the region. The sculptor R. de la Cora was commissioned to create the first monument, which was placed among a grove at West 83rd Street in Central Park known as Bolivar Hill.
From the very start the de la Cora monument attracted controversy. The New York Park Commission hotly debated its artistic merit. The New York Times grimly listed it as one of the city’s more “unsightly New York statues” in 1899. Soon the questionable monument, labeled a “monsterpiece,” was removed from its base. A second commission to create a Bolivar was awarded to Giovanni Turini. The National Sculpture Society flatly rejected his submission. The granite base, which held the monument, stood empty for the next fifteen years.
In August 1916, the Venezuelan government awarded the $24,000 commission to Sally James Farnham, who beat out twenty other entries by some leading sculptors of the day. The New York Times called the commission a “substantial recognition of an American woman sculptor.”
Farnham began at once to create her monument. She traveled to Venezuela to research and absorb Bolivar’s homeland and its culture. Her youngest son, John, remembered in 1989 that she “was proud that her works were accurate in their smallest details. She even researched the buttons on General Bolivar’s uniform.” Almost immediately she ran into problems. She would later recall, “Bolivar’s life was not an easy one, and in my studio it continued to be one of storm and stress. At the time this country was at war. There were few competent workmen; the fuel question was most serious; and many essential materials were impossible to obtain.” Farnham estimated that she lifted at least three tons of plasticene in making the original form. She commented with her usual wit, “You see I am really a stevedore, not an artist.”
The war halted much of her production until March 1918 when she rented studio space from John Ettl, a sculptor known for his method of enlarging sculptural monuments. She worked on weekends and holidays at the Ettl studio to complete her Bolivar because of the distraction from others there during “working” hours. In October 1919, Farnham sued Ettl in New York’s Supreme Court after he refused to allow her and her plaster caster into his studio, claiming Farnham neglected to pay $100 in rent. Desperate, Farnham asked the court to intervene before her model was ruined. In court it was revealed that Ettl called Farnham a “liar” and “made threats of violence against her.” The model was lost during this legal dispute and Sally had to start over from scratch.
By late 1920 her model was finally completed and cast the following year at the Roman Bronze Works foundry. Plans for the formal dedication were well underway. President Warren G. Harding had agreed to give the keynote address at the unveiling.
On April 19, 1921 the monument was formally unveiled and dedicated before a crowd of thousands in New York’s Central Park. By all accounts the work was deemed a critical success. Dr. Esteban Gil-Borges, Minister of Foreign Relations for Venezuela, stated in his dedication speech, “A woman’s hand molded this statue…a woman’s hand gave it eternal form in bronze to that life that was a prodigious dream of heroism, beauty and love. In giving to you one of your women the privilege of that motherhood of glory, my country wished to enhance the significance of this token of friendship.” So honored, Farnham would come to say that it was “the greatest day of my life.” Critic Alexander Woollcott would claim the “towering monument enters the annals of American sculpture at the largest work by a woman which history anywhere records.” Others would label it the only equestrian monument of a man ever created by a woman.
That evening during a special banquet in her honor, the Venezuelan government bestowed on Sally James Farnham the highest honor its country can give, the Order of the Liberator. Farnham cherished the honor and the respect of the South American republics until her death.
by Michael P. Reed |
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By Way of Introduction: |
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Sally James Farnham |
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by Michael P. Reed |
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In 1908 The Monumental News lauded the work of seven women sculptors who dominated the field of monumental sculpture in America. These women were “not mere amateurs amusing themselves, but women who take and execute practical work in competition with artists of the other sex.” They pioneered in a field largely dominated by men and were awarded important commissions for public sculpture on their own technical and artistic merit. Today the names of these women have gone largely unnoticed by scholars and collectors of American art. The current resurgence of interest in art during this vital period has shed new light and advanced scholarship on the careers of important women sculptors such as Evelyn Beatrice Longman, Anna Hyatt Huntington and Harriet Frishmuth, to name just a few.
That Sally James Farnham was named among this group was an incredible feat for a woman who had just six years prior taken up the vocation without any technical training. Her creativity was often driven by personal heartache and her indomitable will to succeed in her chosen field was repeatedly challenged by professional setbacks. At the height of her career, Farnham would enjoy an international reputation. Despite her accomplishments and notoriety, she is regarded today as a minor sculptor and her work is largely forgotten. Her long and remarkable career is due for a reexamination.
Sarah Welles James was born on November 27, 1869 in Ogdensburg, New York into a family of some wealth and a lineage that could be traced back to the Mayflower’s William Bradford. From an early age, Sally was an accomplished equestrienne who loved the physical activities that life on the St. Lawrence River afforded. Motherless by the age of ten, Sally moved to New York City with her father, Col. Edward C. James, a celebrated trial lawyer. Together they traveled the world exploring foreign cultures and art. There is little indication that she showed any overt interest in creating “art” much less pursuing it as a viable career in her future.
On December 31, 1896 Sally married Paulding Farnham, the award-winning design director of jewelry and silver at Tiffany and Company. Together they moved to his family’s estate in Great Neck, New York and she settled into an active life as wife, mother and society matron. This idyllic existence came to an abrupt end in 1901. That year her beloved father died and she later was afflicted with an illness that confined her to a hospital bed. Depressed and bedridden, her husband brought her some modeling clay hoping it would take her mind off of her infirmary. She immediately began to model horses and small figures, later remembering that it was “as if in some mysterious previous state of existence I had actually been a sculptor and the memory of it was beginning to leak back into my fingers and thumbs.”
Over the course of the next few years, she won numerous competitions to create war memorials in Ogdensburg and Rochester, NY. These works were praised for their “unique solution of the problem presented by the typical soldiers monument.” In 1906, the social activist Jacob Riis commissioned her to model a bas-relief of President Theodore Roosevelt. The relief was placed in the gymnasium of the Henry Street Settlement House in New York City. This gave Farnham her first true dose of national exposure as news briefs regarding the work were found in newspapers across the country. Her reputation as a capable and increasingly formidable sculptor began to precede her.
In 1908, she was invited to create four bronze relief panels for the Governing Board Room of the new Pan American Union building in Washington, D.C. The task was difficult as themes of the discovery, exploration and settlement of the New World were tricky to depict. Farnham was sensitive to the realities and the brutality that the conquest of these lands provoked. After reworking the content of many of the panels to please various fractions, The Frieze of the Discoverers was critically well received and praised for it exact attention to historical detail, as well as its sensitive treatment and modeling. Commissions for various marbles busts of South American patriots were awarded to Farnham on the success of the frieze.
In sharp contrast to her burgeoning career, Farnham’s marriage began to quickly deteriorate. Her husband had abruptly resigned from Tiffany’s in 1907 and had moved west, draining the family’s resources on various get rich quick mining schemes. The emotional and financial toil ended when Sally was awarded a divorce on the grounds of abandonment in 1915. Farnham became solely responsible for the financial welfare of her young children and, despite her personal heartache, succeeded in securing the most important commission of her career, one that would bring her international acclaim.
The Venezuelan government sought to replace an often-criticized equestrian monument of Simon Bolivar originally given to the city of New York in 1886. The original bronze by R. de la Cora was notoriously labeled a “monsterpiece.” Farnham’s noble rendering of the Liberator was chosen over the work of fifteen other top sculptors. Numerous delays hampered the production of her monument. The war in Europe had hindered the availability of competent workmen and the necessary bronze. Farnham’s final clay version was destroyed during the course of a public dispute with her landlord over the issue of unpaid rent. Five years later the fifteen-foot monument was dedicated on April 19, 1921 before a crowd of thousands, including the keynote speaker President Warren G. Harding. The work was critically acclaimed by all accounts and was lauded as “the largest work by a woman which history anywhere records.” At the time it was also the only equestrian monument of a man created by a woman. For her incredible effort, Sally was awarded the highest honor bestowed by the Venezuelan government, the Order of the Liberator.
During the 1920’s, Farnham continued exhibiting her work at various venues, including the National Sculpture Society, the National Academy of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of Art. Her portraiture work was sought after and recorded the visages of some of the decade’s most notable personalities, including President Harding, Lynn Fontanne, Marshal Ferdinand Foch and William Mulholland. Her cutaway portrait of violinist Jascha Heifetz is a beautiful example of Farnham’s mastery in this field, a lesson in a paired down naturalism that Farnham increasingly developed. Later in the decade she was awarded a commission to create a heroic sized monument depicting Father Junipero Serra (1925) for the San Fernando Mission in Los Angeles and another important war memorial (1927) for Fultonville, NY.
The dire financial crisis the country faced after the stock market crash of 1929 limited the work of many artists, including Farnham. Her output was minimal during this period. Regardless of her own productivity, she was actively engaged in supporting and advancing the careers of the next generation. Artists such as Olaf Wieghorst, William Wheeler, William Zorach, Evelyn Borchard Metzger and Will James can thank Farnham for her influence and connections in getting some of their early work seen.
In 1930, Farnham modeled what she considered to be her best work. “Pay Day” was an obvious homage to her early mentor and friend, Frederic Remington, depicting four rowdy cowboys racing into town to spend their paychecks on liquor and women. The work is full of the robust energy for which Farnham was known. She liked best “sculptures that are full of force, feeling and emotional expression. I want to believe the whole heart and soul of the artist is in his work. When he can make others believe that, he is a great artist
Farnham’s last truly important work took form in 1936. She entered a competition to create a lasting memorial to the memory of Will Rogers. The work was a powerhouse of subtle detail and quiet contemplation. Rogers’s widow refused to have her husband remembered as a cowboy and the commission eventually was awarded to Jo Davidson, but Farnham’s “Rogers” won the hearts of admirers across the country as photos of it surfaced in newspapers and magazines. She wrote, “I have always felt beauty as well as strength, and loved them. These are important things in sculpture. To mould feeling, strength and wisdom, to see through the outer form and bring to the surface the unconscious joys of life, this is my task.” The bronze brought a record $48,000 at auction in 1988 for a work by the artist.
On April 28, 1943 Farnham died in New York after several years of poor health. Her reputation seemed to have virtually died with her. In 1951, her magnum opus, the Simon Bolivar monument was moved to a new location within Central Park. The rededication of the work was a grand affair, yet newspaper accounts and even the official brochure incredibly failed to mention Farnham’s name even once. |
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By 1915, the Venezuelan government decided to try again and invited
sculptors to submit designs in an open, international competition for the
Bolivar monument. Farnham’s interest was instantly piqued, “Bolivar was
always one of my heroes of romance. He was always in the strong current,
never in the backwaters. He lived extremes-in the trappings of a prince
being acclaimed by the multitudes, in the thick of a revolution,
mud-splashed and sweating…” She had visited the theme of Bolivar once before
in her Frieze of the Discoverers at the Pan-American Union (1910, Washington
D.C.). This time she submitted a design based on a classic equestrian form,
a victorious Bolivar astride his horse. The work was a triumph of detailed
naturalism with studied bits of drama; his wind-swept cape; the power of the
horse in all its equine glory striding forward and the strong features of
its noble leader. The work was an impressive 15 feet tall. The granite
base displayed the coats of arms of the grateful nations he helped to
liberate. This was undoubtedly El Libertador.
In the face of oppressive constraints brought on by society and motherhood,
Farnham decided to seriously pursue this new interest as a profession and
opened a studio in New York the following year. Advice and guidance were
given by her husband, a sculptor in his own right, and Frederic Remington, a
friend from her days in Ogdensburg. Following a busy year of producing
portrait busts and small studio works, she was awarded her first important
commission, a garden fountain for Col. Isaac Emerson of Baltimore. The
fountain was a Beaux Arts confection depicting three life size nude maidens
frolicking hand in hand around a center spout topped with a young figure of
Pan. The work is illustrative of Farnham’s early output being ambitious in
scope and a bit daring in content. The work brought her an astounding
$5,000 and was prominently illustrated in a 1905 article on the artist in
The New York Times.
