TRAVELS OF THE WEST WIND

The West Wind

TRAVELS OF THE WEST WIND

by Joan K. Yanni

The movement of Thomas Ridgeway Gould’s The West Wind to the 19^th-century galleries after decades in the tour entrance brings a sense of rediscovery to the piece. A new, bright blue wall sets off its white classical elegance and its flowing skirt. It seems to beckons us to come and look closely.

The West Wind personifies manifest destiny, the westward settling of new America. Stars around the waist indicate the patriotic theme of the piece. Though the sculpture is heavy marble, it seems to float lightly over its pedestal. The figure is on tiptoe, the wind blowing against it and outlining the contours of the body. The right hand holds the skirt, while the left curves over the bust toward the right shoulder. The head of the figure looks over the left shoulder; the wind blows the hair away from the face, showing a lovely, serene profile.

It is interesting to notice the grey veins in the marble (marble is not pure white) and to see that in some places the marble is carved so deeply that it is almost transparent. What is probably a pile of leaves and earth descends from the back of the skirt and attaches it to the marble base. It seems to be a counterweight to the body of the figure, all of which is at the front of the piece.

The West Wind was created by the American sculptor Thomas Ridgeway Gould and became his most celebrated work. Gould, born in Boston in 1818, started a career as a dry-goods merchant, carving sculptures as a hobby. When his business collapsed during the Civil War, he decided to try sculpture as a profession.

As most sculptors of the day, Gould traveled to Italy where he could study the Old Masters. Here, too, he could find plenty of Carrara marble--Michelangelo’s marble--and carvers. (At this time it was the custom for the sculptor to make clay models of his creations and have hired craftsmen copy it.) Gould went to Italy in 1869 and lived in Florence the rest of his life, returning to the US only twice, once briefly in 1878 and again in 1881, the year he died.

The West Wind was created in 1870 and bought by Hon. Demas Barnes of Brooklyn. The work was so popular that seven replicas were produced in two sizes. Daniel W. Powers of Rochester bought a duplicate, the same size as the first. Our figure is dated 1876. One of these two, it is not clear which was shown at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia-- six-month celebration of America’s founding. The confusion comes because the Barnes statue was listed in the catalogue of the exhibition as the one on display.  But another source lists the version on view as having been lent by “its owner, Mr. Powers, of Rochester, NY.” Whichever was in Philadelphia, the Barnes version is now in the St. Louis Mercantile Library and the Powers version traveled to Rochester for display in the Powers Gallery.

Powers was a prosperous Rochester banker who had been born  in Batavia in 1818, the same year as Gould. Though he came to Rochester to work in a hardware store,  by the age of 31 he had established a successful brokerage and banking business.

He built the Powers building in 1870, a handsome many-storied fire-proof structure at Main and State Street.  Five years later, after a trip to Europe during which he bought many Old Master copies (which was customary at this time), as well as some new works and commissioned The West Wind, he opened his famous art gallery.  As he bought  art, the gallery grew from one room until it eventually occupied three floors. It was open to the public seven days a week and two evenings for the admission price of twenty-five cents.

But,back to Gould.  The sculptor had connections in Rochester before his West Wind arrived here.  He was the uncle of Marion Stratton Gould, who had died at the age of thirteen and whose mother, Mrs. Samuel Gould, created an endowment in her memory. The first purchase through the fund was El Greco’s The Apparition of the Virgin to St. Hyacinth.  Some subsequent purchases made possible by the fund were Mortimer Smith’s Home Late, Reginald Marsh’s People’s Follies, Marsden Hartley’s Waterfall, Morse Pond, Ralston Crawford’sWhitestone Bridge and Arthur Dove’s Cars in a Sleet Storm.  Mrs. Gould also bequeathed her brother-in-law’s marble relief The Ghost in Hamlet to the Gallery. Many of MAG’s most important works are still acquired through this fund.

It had been Power’s intent to donate his gallery to the city after his death, but when the city denied his request for tax relief and even tried to levy a tax on the gallery, Powers changed his will and left his fortune to his wife and children, with nothing to the city or to maintain the gallery. After this death in 1898, an auction of the best works from the gallery was held in New York City. The West Wind was not in the sale. Some of the largest paintings and sculptures had been left behind and subsequently moved from the gallery to other parts of the building to make room for office space.

In 1952 Memorial Art Gallery curator Isabel Herdle was putting together a show celebrating the 75^th birthday of the Rochester Art Club.  She looked for The West Wind in the Powers Building, but was unable to find it. It did not make the RAC show, but tenacious Isabel never gave up. According to gallery stories, she made repeated visits to the building, picture of the sculpture in hand, until in 1965 she came upon a cleaning woman and, on a whim, showed her the picture.  The woman told her exactly where the statue was: on the second floor in the shadow of a staircase next to a phone booth. After a cleaning, the marble looked as good as new.

Another tale of the sculpture must be told. For a time West Wind stood in the lobby of the Powers hotel, and lawyers who passed by on their way to a court case would rub the statue’s toe for good luck. Thus the toe is worn smooth and shiny.

When was West Wind in the lobby and not in the top floor galleries?  Too many questions spoil a good story!

Source: Elizabeth Brayer: MAGnum Opus; Susan Dodge Peters, editor: Memorial Art Gallery: An Introduction to the Collection;  Marjorie Searl, editor, Seeing America, Cynthia Culbert, Chapter 21,“Thomas Ridgeway Gould : The West Wind”; curatorial files