GEORGE GREY BARNARD by Joan K. Yanni

GEORGE GREY BARNARD

by Joan K. Yanni

School children are delighted when they see George Grey Barnard's marble head of Abraham Lincoln (86.5). Because they recognize the subject (at least at second guess), they feel more at home in the Gallery. The work was one of a series of Lincoln heads done by Barnard after long study of a life mask of Lincoln taken by sculptor Leonard Wells Volk in 1860.

George Grey Barnard (1863-1938) was born in a small town in Pennsylvania, the son of a Presbyterian minister.  Interested in art from an early age, he trained himself in drawing and modeling, then, at 19, entered the Art Institute of Chicago School.  Here, drawing the powerful figures of Michelangelo from plaster casts inspired him to concentrate on sculpture, and in 1883 he went to Paris to study at the École des Beaux Arts. Though he lived in extreme poverty and in conditions that would have defeated a less dedicated artist, Barnard's complete absorption in his work overcame even hunger and loneliness.

In 1886 he received his first commission: to carve a marble statue, which he named Boy. A commission for a monument to the Norwegian poet Severin Skovgaard soon followed. Around this time he met his most important patron, American collector Alfred Clark.

In 1884 Barnard exhibited six works at the Paris Salon, including the famous marble group, Struggle of the Two Natures in Man, which was modeled in Paris and blocked out at the marble quarry at Carrara, Italy. The Two Natures was a spectacular success, praised by Rodin himself. (It is now owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, donated by Clark.) The sculpture shows influences of both Michelangelo and Rodin.

On his return to New York, Barnard taught sculpture at the Art Students League for three years. In 1904 he went back to Paris to execute his largest commission: two groups of heroic size, symbolic nude figures for the new State Capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The large allegorical groups—34 figures in total—represent two ways of life: the Broken Law is made up of writhing, tortured forms; and the Unbroken Law of tranquil, though powerful figures. The project took seven years to complete.

Barnard's last major sculpture was a 14-foot figure of Abraham Lincoln, which was cast in bronze and erected in Cincinnati in 1917. Before creating the work, the sculptor studied Volk's life mask of Lincoln as well as a series of unretouched photographs taken during Lincoln's life.  Excerpts from a letter written in 1985 by the artist's son, Monroe Grey Barnard, and his grandson, George Grey Barnard II, note that the sculptor studied the character and development of Lincoln in detail, and that between 1913 and 1918 Barnard limited his work to creating only sculptures of Lincoln.  One of many portraits made during this time was MAG's head, purchased in 1986 from Barnard's family holdings.

At its completion in 1917, most critics praised the Cincinnati statue for its sensitivity and modeling, but the sculpture drew controversy when it was suggested that a replica be given to the city of London. Arch-conservative English critics, led by F. Wellington Ruckstull, then editor of The Art World, objected because they said it portrayed Lincoln as undignified and disheveled, with oversize hands and feet. (As a result of the criticism, a replica of a Saint-Gaudens Lincoln was sent to London instead.) Today Barnard’s statue is universally applauded as reflecting  Lincoln's  sympathetic

nature mingled with his rugged strength of character. Replicas are in the Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, in Manchester, England, and in Louisville, Kentucky. In Barnard's studio at his death was a gigantic Lincoln head made of plaster, almost 16 feet from forehead to chin. It was meant to be carved out of solid rock and placed on the Palisades, overlooking the Hudson River, but this never happened.

While living in Paris, Barnard began collecting fragments of Gothic and Romanesque sculpture and reconstructing them. He brought these back to America and set them up for display in his studio and garden near Fort Tryon Park, north of New York City. Barnard sent the revenues from entrance fees to widows and orphans of men killed in World War I. The artifacts were purchased from him in 1925 by John D. Rockefeller and presented to the Metropolitan Museum as the nucleus of its collection of Medieval art, now the Cloisters.

Barnard's place in American sculpture is a special one because he embraced neither neoclassicism nor the French academic manner, but created an individual and powerful style, romantic, expressive and naturalistic. Three of his works, Rising Woman, The Prodigal Son, and Adam and Eve are on the Rockefeller estate at Pocantico Hills, NY. Two marbles depicting Life are in niches at the top of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue, and his bronze The Great God Pan is on the campus at Columbia University.

Sources: Curatorial files; Wayne Craven, Sculpture in America, Thomas Crowell Company, NY, 1968; Encyclopedia of American Art, E. P. Dutton, NY, 1981.