Glenna Goodacre
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Glenna M. Goodacre (born 1939 in Lubbock, Texas, U.S.) is a sculptor best known for having designed the Sacagawea dollar that entered circulation in the United States in 2000. She also designed the Vietnam Women's Memorial located in Washington, D.C.
All across America in countless public, private, municipal and museum collections, Glenna Goodacre’s bronze sculptures are immediately recognizable for their lively expression and texture, and for their intriguing composition. Goodacre graduated from Monterey High School in Lubbock. She then completed studies at Colorado College and classes at the Art Students League in New York, she became a successful Texas painter, but for the last thirty years she has concentrated mainly on sculpture. She has simultaneously been an active wife, mother, and now grandmother.
Her most well-known work is the Vietnam Women’s Memorial installed in Washington, D.C. in 1993. Goodacre was selected in 1997 as sculptor for the monumental Irish Memorial in Philadelphia. Completed and installed at Penn’s Landing in 2003, the massive bronze is her most ambitious public sculpture—with 35 life-size figures. In 1998, her 8-foot standing portrait of Ronald Reagan was unveiled at the Reagan Library in California. Another cast is at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. After a nationwide competition for a Sacagawea dollar coin design in 1999, Goodacre’s rendering for the face was unveiled at the White House by First Lady Hillary Clinton. In 2004, her heroic bronze portrait of legendary West Point Coach Colonel Earl “Red” Blaik was dedicated at the National College Football Hall Of Fame. Also In 2004 she designed the Children’s Medal of Honor awarded to First Lady Laura Bush in Dallas by the Greater Texas Community Partners.
An academician of the National Academy of Design and a fellow of the National Sculpture Society, Goodacre has won many awards at their exhibitions in New York. Goodacre has received honorary doctorates from Colorado College, her alma mater, and Texas Tech University in her hometown of Lubbock. In 2002, her work won the James Earl Fraser Sculpture Award at the Prix De West Exhibition. In 2003, she was awarded the prestigious Texas Medal Of Arts and later that year was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall Of Fame in Fort Worth. In 2005 a street in Lubbock, Texas, was named Glenna Goodacre Boulevard and in Santa Fe at the State Capitol, Bill Richardson awarded her the New Mexico Governor’s Award For Excellence In The Arts. In 2006 she was appointed by Governor Richardson to the State Quarter Design Committee to help design a U.S. quarter coin representing New Mexico.
In March 2007 Glenna suffered a fall and head injury. In August, she returned home from the hospital to resume her normal activities with her family, friends, and 2 poodles. She makes daily visits to her studio which is by her home.
Glenna is a life-long visitor to New Mexico and a resident since 1983. She and her husband attorney C.L. Mike Schmidt have homes in Santa Fe and Pecos.
Goodacre was inducted into the Buddy Holly Walk of Fame in Lubbock in 1997.
In August 2005, the former 8th Street in the vicinity of Texas Tech in Lubbock was renamed Glenna Goodacre Boulevard. She is the mother of the former Victoria's Secret model Jill Goodacre (born 1965), the wife of musician and actor Harry Connick, Jr. (born 1967), of New Orleans.
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[edit] Injury
Goodacre was transferred to the Craig Hospital brain trauma center in Englewood, Colorado, after a fall injury sent her into a coma on March 13, 2007. An MRI disclosed that Goodacre had a massive head injury. Goodacre's husband told reporters, "We don't know if Glenna fainted and fell, or had a mini-stroke and fell." Schmidt said on April 9 that his wife had made major progress in the past three days. While otherwise bedridden, she was able to stand briefly with assistance and could utter the words "yes" and "okay."
On January 18, 2008, Goodacre was well enough to unveil her new sculpture Crossing the Prairie at the Santa Fe St. Vincent Regional Medical Center. She is said to have recovered very well, although she still has problems with concentration because of aphasia.[1]
[edit] Selected portraiture
- Stephen Austin, Anheuser-Busch, Sea World of Texas, San Antonio, Texas*Dan Blocker, (1973) O'Donnell, Texas
- Dwight D. Eisenhower 1987, Anheuser-Busch, Sea World of Texas, San Antonio, Texas
- William Curry Holden, first director of the Museum of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, located in rotunda of museum entrance
- Ralph A. Johnston, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
- Scott Joplin, 1987, Anheuser-Busch, Sea World of Texas, San Antonio, Texas
- Barbara Jordan (1987) Anheuser-Busch, Sea World of Texas, San Antonio
- Katherine Ann Porter (1986), Anheuser-Busch, Sea World of Texas, San Antonio
- Ronald Reagan, After the Ride (1998), Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, Simi Valley, California
- Eric Sloane, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
[edit] Selected public monuments
- Rescue, (1999), Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Blount Cultural Park, Montgomery, Alabama
- The Puddle Jumpers, (1989), Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Blount Cultural Park, Montgomery, Alabama
- Raising the Flag or Pledge of Allegiance, (1991), Stroh's Plaza, Detroit, Michigan
- Vietnam Women's Memorial, The Mall, Washington D.C. (1993)
- Philosopher's Rock. (1994), Austin, Texas
- Irish Memorial, (2003) Penn's Landing, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Crossing the Prairie, 2002, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Amarillo, Texas
[edit] References
- Edson, Gary, ed., Glenna Goodacre: The First 25 Years, Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, 1995
- Kvaran, Einar Einarsson, Monuments in America, unpublished manuscript
- http://www.lubbockonline.com/stories/033008/loc_263159409.shtml
