Center Stage: Sculpture at the Philadelphia Flower Show, 1934-1936

Above. Scherzo at the 1934 Philadelphia Flower Show. Below. Press photo of Harriet Frishmuth in her New York studio with Wilbur Foshay of Minneapolis and his purchase of the first large-scale bronze cast of Scherzo; and press photo of the fountain sculpture at opening of the Foshay Building in 1929.

Scherzo. Harriet Whitney Frishmuth (1880-1980)

Frishmuth’s large-scale fountain sculpture anchored the central feature of the 1934 Philadelphia Flower Show. Titled Scherzo, the bronze was a second cast by the Gorham Company in 1929 and made one of its first appearances at the 1930 Sculpture-in-the-Open-Air exhibition sponsored by the Philadelphia Art Alliance. The sculpture’s first flower show exhibition was at the September 1931 National-Atlantic City Flower Show and Garden Pageant (possibly part of the Bobbink & Atkins Nursery entry). Sometime after 1934, Scherzo traveled west to Muncie, Indiana. It was purchased by the collector, Frank C. Ball, through the Grand Central Art Galleries, New York where according to the Smithsonian’s Art Inventories catalog, it stood for many years on the grounds of his estate. In the 1990s, the Ball Brothers Foundation transferred Scherzo to Ball State University where it is currently installed on the first floor of Bracken Library.

As mentioned above, there were two casts made of Scherzo in 1929. Scherzo was first commissioned by businessman Wilbur Foshay who was building the first skyscraper in Minneapolis. In August 1929, the Foshay Tower opened with a three-day dedication celebration that included the unveiling of Frishmuth’s fountain figure by representatives of the Art Committee of the Fifth District Federation of Women’s Clubs – a powerful force in the cultural life of the city:

“At 11:30 a.m. members of the art committee of the Fifth District Federation of Women’s Clubs began the unveiling ceremony. There was an address by Mrs. E. J. Beresford, chairman, who was introduced by Mrs. Mary D. LaRue, president.

"A group of dancing girls whirled out into the courtyard, and after a few maneuvers, grasped a network of ropes drooping from the bunting that concealed the fountain figure, and the statue was unveiled. A moment later the fountain began to bubble.

"In her address, Mrs. Beresford pointed out that in “Scherzo,” Miss Frishmuth, the sculptor, had made a major contribution to American art. She pointed to the Art Institute and the Walker galleries as examples of the city’s love of the beautiful, and cited the “Scherzo” as a valuable addition to those collections.

“'Scherzo,' as art, speaks of joy, lilting lightly the messages on tiptoe of sportive happiness, and as an art to be enjoyed by all …” Minneapolis Morning Tribune, 31 August 1929

Six weeks after the building's opening, on November 2, 1929, Foshay's corporate empire was thrown into receivership at the onset of the Great Depression. In 1932, W. B. Foshay was convicted of conducting a "pyramid scheme" with shares of his own stock and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Frishmuth, who had not been paid in full for the sculpture, eventually settled for a 45-percent payment of the debt. In a May 2021 piece titled “5 Public Art Treasures in the Twin Cities,” Andy Sturdevant of Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, succinctly traces the sculpture's movements around the city:

“'Scherzo' from The Foshay courtyard, a bronze sculpture of a dancing woman by Philadelphia sculptor Harriet Frishmuth, has skipped her way across a few prominent locations in town. She was the centerpiece of the Foshay Tower’s courtyard in 1929 and was sent to grace the front of Charlie’s Cafe Exceptionale in downtown Minneapolis after the tower’s namesake went bust in the Depression. Today, Scherzo resides at The Original at West Lake Quarter apartments near Bde Maka Ska.”

Above. Inspiration by Edward Field Sanford, Jr. is framed by the Joseph Widener Acacia Collection Exhibit in the 1934 Philadelphia Flower Show. Below. Sanford photographed with his sculptural group on the pediment of California State Library and Courts Building. Inspiration and its companion Wisdom are installed  in the Circulation and Catalog Room on the third floor of the Library. (California State Library Picture Collection)

Inspiration. Edward Field Sanford, Jr. (1886–1951)

Sanford’s bronze cast titled Inspiration was shown at the 1930 Art Alliance Sculpture-in-the-Open-Air exhibition held in Rittenhouse Square. Four years later, it shared the stage with Joseph Widener’s spectacular acacia collection at the Philadelphia Flower Show. Completed in 1928, Inspiration along with another Sanford bronze titled Wisdom were commissioned for the interior of the new beaux-arts California State Library and Courts Building in Sacramento. The building designed by the San Francisco architectural firm of Weeks & Day, also included Sanford’s granite pediment group titled California’s Gift to the World.  Composed of seventeen figures, it was the largest pediment in the country at the time of installation. Shortly after its installation at the California State Library, another cast of Inspiration was included in the juried 1928 National Academy of Design Winter Exhibition held annually in the Academy’s galleries in New York. It attracted the attention of Adolf E. Leftwich, described as a “prominent New York critic,” and R. Dean Hearne, both of the Harvard Law Club:

“Immoral!” declared A. E. Leftwich, of the Harvard Law Club, describing a statue of a nude female at the National Academy of Design to John Sumner, head of the [New York] Society for the Suppression of Vice.

“Indecent!” added R. Dean Hearne, also of the Harvard Law Club, lodging a complaint against the statue."

John Sumner, known as the “intrepid nemesis of naughtiness” and who focused chiefly on ridding the city of obscene books did not agree:

“It’s Art” answered the vice crusader, after investigating the complaint. […]

"C. Curran, secretary of the National Academy, declared “All my reactions to the statue are reactions to its beauty. We are proud to have on exhibition a piece of sculpture so distinguished.” -- "Vice Crusader Lauds Statue Dubbed Vicious." Washington Herald, 12 December 1928

The vice story in many variants ran in more than 120 newspapers throughout the U.S. and Canada. It is no surprise that Sanford benefited from the national publicity. He received a commission to produce another Inspiration, this time in marble, to be placed in the gardens at Black Point, the estate of Henry Huttleston Rogers, Jr. in Southampton, New York. Casts of the sculpture entered two more public collections -- one into the collections of the Virginia Museum of the Fine Arts in 1939 (it was deaccessioned by VMFA in 1949 as "broken beyond repair") and one into the Brookgreen Gardens collection in 1945. 

Thomas W. Sears. Plan of the Central Section Showing Locations of Sculpture. 1935 Philadelphia Flower Show [annotated by R. Tait McKenzie]. (Philadelphia Art Alliance Records, 1906-1990. Ms. Coll. 53. Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania)

La Source by Harrison Gibbs at the 1935 Philadelphia Flower Show. (Image courtesy of Ramona Gibbs)

La Source. Harrison Gibbs (1908-1944)

“One of my absolute favorites is called “La Source” and was a centerpiece of the 1935 Philadelphia Flower Show.” – Interview with Corey Brennan PhD. Flyover Zone, 2021.

Using public records, the records of the American Academy in Rome, images from the photo archive of the architect Richard Ayers, and materials from the collections of Ramona Gibbs, Corey Brennan traces the life and work of the sculptor, Harrison Gibbs:

“My father was born in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, in 1908 and began formal study in sculpture with Albert Laessle at the age of sixteen.  He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with Charles Grafly and Walker Hancock and later with Carl Milles during a summer at the Cranbrook Academy of Art.   He won the Prix de Rome at age 27.  Upon returning from the American Academy in Rome, he taught sculpture in the College of Architecture at Cornell University, during which time he and my mother, Maurine Montgomery, were married.   When the U.S. became involved in World War II, my father helped the war effort by working at the Boeing Plant in Seattle.  However, being very patriotic, he felt that was not enough, so he asked for voluntary induction into the Army and was inducted in 1943.   I was born before my father shipped overseas, so he was able to come home for my baptism.  Unfortunately, I was too young to have memories of that one-time meeting.  My father died in battle in France the day after Christmas, 1944, at the age of 36.

“In 1945, my father was posthumously awarded the Gold Medal of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Fellowship Society at their annual exhibition for a group of five sculptures, two of which he had created while at the AAR: Victory (Spirit of America) and St. Martin and the Beggar.   Spirit of America was also included in an exhibit entitled Man and Horse at Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina, in 2008 and in an exhibit on the art of collecting at the Peoria Riverfront Museum in 2015.” -- Interview with Ramona Gibbs. Flyover Zone, 2021.

Above. Louis Milione’s Fountain Figure at the 1935 Philadelphia Flower Show. Below. Detail of Milione’s sculptural group for the 1924 Laramie Wyoming War Memorial (in American Magazine of Art, March 1925), and, Photo-postcard of the exterior series of historical reliefs and entrance groups symbolizing the agriculture and industry executed by Louis Milione and John M. Bateman for the Pennsylvania Building at the Sesqui-Centennial International Exposition (1926 : Philadelphia, Pa.)

Fountain Figure. Louis Milione (1884-1955)

Louis Milione’s fountain sculptures shared the central feature of the 1935 Philadelphia Flower Show. Milione exhibited in the first Sculpture-in-the-Open-Air exhibition held in Rittenhouse Square and sponsored by the Philadelphia Art Alliance. Although he participated in exhibitions in Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago, Milione was chiefly known for his work as an architectural sculptor. In 1924, he partnered with the Philadelphia architectural firm of Thomas, Martin and Kirkpatrick to create the Laramie (Wyoming) War Memorial. Milione’s figures for the base of the memorial were described in the March 1925 issue of the American Magazine of Art as:

“ … The shaft of limestone, 25 feet high and capped with a cross, has grouped about its base four figures in bronze, representing a soldier, a sailor, an aviator, and St. Michael.

The chief difficulty with a figure used architecturally in a second manner, and not primarily as a statue, arises, particularly in Gothic and allied styles, from an attempt to have it either too realistic or too archaic. That a happy medium can and should be found is, we believe, in each of the accompanying photographs. The pose of each figure and the hang of the folds in the garments give a result just sufficiently conventionalized to make the statue play the secondary part it should play, not so realistic that it appears to be stepping forth from its surroundings to extend a cordial greeting, and not so terribly conventionalized that it appears to repose in an embalmed attitude that would do credit to an Egyptian mummy. …”

About a year later, Milione and John M. Bateman (1877-1955) were commissioned to execute a series of exterior historical reliefs and entrance groups symbolizing agriculture and industry for the Pennsylvania Building at the 1926 Sesqui-Centennial International Exposition in Philadelphia. Other architectural commissions included the sculptural elements for the Nemours Carillon, Wilmington, Delaware (Massena and Du Pont, 1930), the sculptural work for the Girard College Chapel on the pediments of the main doorways and throughout the building, including the “figures of the four Major Prophets in the rotundas” (Thomas and Martin, 1931-1933), bronze-work on the Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower, Menlo Park, New Jersey (Massena and Du Pont, 1937), the West Pediment titled Juvenile Protection for the Family Court Building (John T. Windrim, 1941), and, with Lee Oscar Lawrie (1877-1963), the panel titled Patriotism for the U.S. Senate Building (1951)

Above. Nemours Carillon (Massena and Du Pont, 1930), the sculptural work for the Girard College Chapel on the pediments of the main doorways,  (Thomas and Martin, 1931-1933), Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower, Menlo Park, New Jersey (Massena and Du Pont, 1937). Middle.  The West Pediment titled Juvenile Protection for the Family Court Building (John T. Windrim, 1941) Below. Marble panel titled Patriotism for the U.S. Senate Building (1951)

Thomas W. Sears. General Plan. 1936 Philadelphia Flower Show [annotated by R. Tait McKenzie]. (Philadelphia Art Alliance Records, 1906-1990. Ms. Coll. 53. Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania)

Above. The Falcon by R. Tait McKenzie installed at the 1936 Philadelphia Flower Show. Below: In 1931, R. Tait McKenzie was commissioned to create an aviation trophy as a memorial to John C. Webster (1901-1931), an amateur aviation racer and the first Canadian to compete in the 1931 King’s Cup Air Race in Great Britain. The sculpture, titled Triumph of Wings is shown as a model (in the McKenzie Collection, Mill of Kintail, Ontario), in bronze (in the Penn Art Collection. University of Pennsylvania, image in the Lloyd P. Jones Gallery Photograph Collection. UPX 12 J762. University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania). The Webster Memorial Trophy is on permanent exhibition in the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, Ottawa, Ontario.

The Falcon. Robert Tait McKenzie (1867-1938)

The Falcon by R. Tait McKenzie was shown at the 1936 Philadelphia Flower Show and was possibly shown again in May 1936 as part of the Franklin Institute’s “display of airplanes and streamlining” at the Philadelphia on Parade exhibition at the Commercial Museum.

McKenzie based The Falcon on an earlier commission in 1931 to create an aviation trophy as a memorial to John C. Webster (1901-1931), a gifted amateur aviation racer and the first Canadian to compete in the King’s Cup Air Race (1931) in Great Britain. The sculpture, titled Triumph of Wings, provided the basis for its less fussy large-scale successor.

Quoted by Joseph Hanaway in his short study titled “The Falcon: The Statue of a Winged Youth at McGill” (2016), McKenzie described his sculpture in December 1935:

“I have modeled the figure to express the perfect beauty of the youthful form and have tried to follow, in so doing, the great tradition of sculpture. The buoyant figure is framed by its four wings. They form an areola about it and give volume and background to the slenderness of the figure. The aviator is moving forward from a position of rest on his left foot, the right ready to act when he takes off for flight. The left wing is already extended; the right wing is just about to be raised. Of the two rear wings to complete his biplane, the left is still partly folded while the right one is partly extended to balance the mass of the fully spread front wing on the other side. He is gazing keenly upward and forward. On his head the flying helmet is conventionalized into a hawk’s mask with its keen eye and short, curved and notched beak” – “The Falcon by R. Tait McKenzie.” McGill University Archives. F. Cyril James fonds, Office of the Principal

McGill University acquired the plaster cast of The Falcon from McKenzie’s widow in 1951 and arranged for a bronze cast to be carried out by the Roman Bronze Works in Greenport, New York. Today, The Falcon is located on the terrace at the entrance to McGill’s McLennan Library.

Alba by Lawrence Tenney Stevens at the 1936 Philadelphia Flower Show framed by the Joseph Widener Acacia Collection.

Alba. Lawrence Tenney Stevens (1896-1972)

Alba by Lawrence Tenney Stevens was shown at the 1936 Philadelphia Flower Show amid Joseph Widener’s ubiquitous acacia collection. Stevens created at least two or possibly three versions of Alba that were exhibited between 1928 and 1933 to generally positive reviews:

“it is curious how frequently our contemporary artists derive their inspiration from primitive and archaic forms. Lawrence Tenney Stevens, for example, whose sculpture was shown at the Grand Central Art Galleries (15 Vanderbilt Ave.) during November, is plainly indebted to Egypt for the most fruitful of his ideas. [...]

“Except for a certain warmth and realism, his two statues of Alba might almost have come from the tomb of some Pharaoh. The rigid pose of the young girl, the bordered robe which falls to the ankles yet subtly molds the limbs, the very treatment of the hair are entirely typical of Egyptian sculpture […]

“He would do well, one feels, to retain the Egyptian elements in his work, but to recombine them more freshly and daringly into new forms.” –  International Studio, December 1928.

Alba was shown again in 1931 and the Boston Art Club and in 1933 at the 128^th Annual Exhibition at the Pennsylvania of the Fine Arts:

“There is something decidedly original and virile in the sculptures of Lawrence Tenney Stevens that are on exhibition at the Boston Art Club on Dartmouth st. This is the second time within a few years that the work of Mr. Stevens – a young Bostonian sculptor – has been publicly exhibited. He was awarded the Prix de Rome by the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in 1922 and there he caught something of that new spirit which had already begun to influence Italian sculpture. [...]

“You note some of this archaic strength and simplicity in such figures as “Alba” in this exhibition. In fact, the spirit of the Etruscan period runs through a good deal of Mr. Stevens work, whether he is consciously aware of the fact or not. […]” – Boston Globe, 28 November 1931.

“ … This same quality of simplicity is found in Lawrence Tenney Stevens’ “Alba”, in bronze, a young woman wearing what was once popularly known as a sheath gown, the lines of her body being distinctly manifest beneath the texture, a matter of no small difficulty. The same severity of line is carried out in facial features and treatment of the hair. […]” – Philadelphia Inquirer, 5 February 1933.

Installation details of Beatrice Fenton’s Sundial and Baby Neptune Fountain, and Spring by Wheeler Williams at the 1936 Philadelphia Flower Show.

Provisional artist attributions for the sculpture shown above were made based on an examination of the exhibition lists, plans and correspondence for the 1936 Philadelphia Flower Show found in the Philadelphia Art Alliance Records, 1906-1990. Ms. Coll. 53 held by the University of Pennsylvania’s Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts. Sundial and Baby Neptune Fountain are attributed to Beatrice Fenton and the attribution for the Spring figure from the Four Seasons to Wheeler Williams (1897-1972).

Although the Sears-McKenzie partnership with the Philadelphia Flower Show ended in 1936, the idea of a central feature to unite the show continued. Responsibility for the 1937 central feature was handed over to the garden designer, Walter Van Den Hengel (1877-1941). Hengel produced what was called a “winding Australian Roadway” lined with “dozens of full-grown eucalyptus trees” that would “intermingle with the feathery acacias as they do in their natural habitat, Australia.” There was no “formal” curated exhibition of sculpture in the 1937 show. Hengel reintroduced sculpture into the central feature in 1938 where eight "heroic figures" were designed by Harriet Frishmuth and A. A. Weinman (1870-1952). Throughout the 20th-century and into the 2000s, sculptural elements continued to be integrated into the flower show’s central theme and exhibits.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Sarah Heim of the University of Pennsylvania’s Kislak Center for Special Collections, Books and Manuscripts, Timothy H. Horton of the University of Pennsylvania Archives & Records Center,  Robert G. La France, Ph.D., of the David Owsley Museum of Art, Ball State University, Katherine Haas, Girard College Archives, Katie Domurat of the Virginia Museum of the Fine Arts, and readers, Janet Evans and Susan Glassman.