James Earle Fraser

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End of the Trail
End of the Trail
This article is about James Earle Fraser, the American sculptor. For the Canadian historian, see James E. Fraser.

James Earle Fraser (November 4, 1876 – October 11, 1953) was an American sculptor, born in Winona, Minnesota. Fraser's father was an engineer working for the railroads as they expanded across the American West. As a result young James was exposed to the frontier life and particularly to the Native Americans, who were being ever pushed further west or confined to reservations. These early memories were to find expression in his work as an artist, particularly in two of his best known works, the powerful and often copied, "End of the Trail" and the Indian Head/Buffalo nickel.

Thomas Fraser, James' father, being one of the Anglo-Americans closest to the event (he was surveying Yellowstone at the time), was part of a group sent out to recover the remains of the 7th Cavalry following General George Armstrong Custer's debacle at Little Bighorn on June 15, 1876, just a few months before Fraser's birth.

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[edit] Life and career

Fraser began following his chosen path by carving figures from pieces of limestone scavenged from a stone quarry close to his home near Mitchell, South Dakota. After it became apparent to the family that he was serious about following sculpture as a career Fraser, fourteen at the time, whose family had by then relocated to Chicago, began working as an assistant to sculptor Richard Bock and attending classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. He was fortunate in that he arrived at in time to participate in the work that was afforded to all sculptors in Chicago at the time by the arrival of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 and the massive amount of sculpture, particularly architectural sculpture that accompanied it.

In 1895 Bock helped his assistant gain admission to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where Fraser worked under well-known French sculptor Alexandre Falguière. It was while he was working and studying in Paris that Fraser came to the attention of Augustus Saint Gaudens who was always looking for capable assistants. St. Gaudens was in Paris at that time, and engaged Fraser to assist him on his General Sherman Monument, which was eventually erected at the Fifth Avenue entrance to Central Park.

Indian Head nickel obverse
Indian Head nickel obverse
Indian Head nickel reverse
Indian Head nickel reverse

Having worked for Saint Gaudens for four years, Fraser left his master in 1902 and set up his own studio in New York, where he was to maintain a studio for over half a century. Shortly thereafter he began teaching at the Art Students League. Saint Gauden's effect on his work at this time was profound, and much of his early works were bas-relief portraits, frequently of people referred to him by the always over-booked Saint Gaudens. At that time Fraser also developed a reputation as a numismatist, creating his best-known and certainly his most circulated work – the Indian Head or "Buffalo" nickel – in 1913. This coin was discontinued after 1938, but has since been reprised in 2001 on a US commemorative coin, and more recently on a gold buffalo one ounce gold bullion coin. Almost as well known in its day, but largely overlooked now, was his Victory Medal produced in 1919 to commemorate the closing of the First World War. Over five million were struck at that time. In 1913 Fraser married a former student of his, Laura Gardin Fraser, who remained his partner for the rest of his life and was a highly respected sculptor in her own right.

It was for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition held in San Francisco in 1915 that Fraser produced his most recognized work, the doleful "End of the Trail." Fraser was later to remark that he should have copyrighted the image and that many people, painters, print and calendar makers and even other sculptors, made more profit from this work than he did.

During the early years of the 20th century his style also changed from the impressionistic realism that he had inherited from Saint Gaudens to a more modern style, with smoother lines, less complicated silhouettes and less detailed surfaces. However, although Fraser had several pieces in the Armory Show of 1913 and despite the fact that he was considered among the ranks of sculpture’s "modernists" at the time, he quickly fell out of step with the artists who continued working towards an increasingly abstract style. Following the end of the First World War Fraser’s attention turned to larger works, public monuments and architectural sculpture.

Although by the 1930s Fraser’s style of realism was no longer in vogue and architectural sculpture was no longer called for, he nonetheless stayed in demand. His last major installation, two large groups, "The Peaceful Arts" for the Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington D.C. had in fact been sculpted years before but had seen their installation delayed because of the Second World War.

Muralist Barry Faulkner, a friend of Fraser’s from their days in Paris together described Fraser like this: "His character was like a good piece of Scotch tweed, handsome, durable and warm." [see Wilkonson, References]

[edit] Public monuments

[edit] Selected architectural sculpture

Department of Commerce Building, Washington D.C.
Department of Commerce Building, Washington D.C.
  • Discovers & Pioneers, Michigan Avenue Bridge, Chicago Illinois, 1928
  • Pediments for the Department of Commerce Building, Washington D.C., 1934
  • Recorder of the Archive, Pediment, National Archives Building, Washington D.C., 1935
  • Heritage & Guardian, National Archives Building, Washington D.C., 1935
  • Contemplation of Justice & Authority of Law, Supreme Court Building, Washington D.C., 1935
  • attic figures of Merriweather Lewis, George Rogers Clark, Daniel Boone and John James Audubon, American Museum of Natural History, New York City, 1940

[edit] Images

Elk's Memorial, Chicago.IL

Lincoln, Syracuse, NY

John Hay Memorial

Memorial to Thomas Edison, Dearborn, MI

Ericsson Memorial, Washington D.C.

Arts of Peace, Washington D.C.

National Archives Building, Washington D.C.

Guardianship, Washington D.C.

the Discoverers, Chicago, IL

the Pioneers, Chicago, IL

Benjamin Franklin, Springfield, IL

Authority of Law, Supreme Court Building, Washington D.C.

Benjamin Franklin, Philadelphia, PA

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Armstrong, Craven, et al, 200 Years of American Sculpture, Whitney Museum of Art, NYC, 1976
  • Bock, Richard W., Memoirs of an American Artist, ed. Dorathi Bock Pierre, C.C. Publishing Co., Los Angeles CA 1991
  • Craven, Wayne, Sculpture in America, Thomas Y. Crowell Co, NY, NY 1968
  • Freundlich, A.L.,The Sculpture of James Earle Fraser, Universal Publishers / uPublish.com USA 2001
  • Goode, James M. The Outdoor Sculpture of Washington D.C., Smithsonian Institute Press, Washington D.C. 1974
  • Gurney, George, Sculpture and the Federal Triangle, Smithsonian Institute Press, Washington D.C. 1985
  • Krakell, Dean, End of the Trail: the Odyssey of a Statue, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma 1973
  • Kvaran,, Einar Einarsson, Architectural Sculpture in America, unpublished manuscript
  • McSpadden, J. Walker, Famous Sculptors of America, Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc. New York 1924
  • National Sculpture Society, Contemporary American Sculpture, The California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Lincoln Park, San Francisco, The National Sculpture Society 1929
  • Neuhaus, Eugen, E., Art of the Exposition, Paul Elder and Company, San Francisco 1915
  • Proske, Beatrice Gilman, Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture, Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina, 1968
  • Reynalds, Donald Martin, Masters of American Sculpture: The Figurative Tradition From the American Renaissance to the Millennium, Abbeville Press, NY 1993
  • Taft, Lorado, The History of American Sculpture, MacMillan Co., New York, NY 1925
  • Wilkinson, Burke, and David Finn, photographs, Uncommon Clay: The Life and Works of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, San Diego 1985
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