Franklin Bachelder Simmons (January 11, 1839 Webster, Maine – December 8, 1913 Rome) was a prominent American sculptor of the nineteenth century.[1][2]
Simmons spent most of his childhood in Bath, Maine and Lewiston, Maine. He attended Bates College (then called the Maine State Seminary) in 1858. Simmons started sculpting and painting during childhood. He studied with John Adams Jackson.[3]
During the last two years of the American Civil War, he moved to Washington, D.C. and sculpted members of Lincoln's Cabinet and military officers. The sculptures were cast in bronze and medallions were created. The Union League of Philadelphia purchased most of the medallions. In 1867 Simmons received an honorary A.M. from Bates College and from Colby.
Simmons went to live in Rome in 1868, but returned several times.
Contents |
Among Simmons' more important works are the statues of Roger Williams, in the United States Capitol in Washington and in Providence and Roger Williams Park; William King, for the state of Maine; Oliver P. Morton, in Indianapolis; Henry W. Longfellow (1887), in Portland; "Robert Treat Paine",[4] and "Jochebed with the Infant Moses"[5] in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; "Medusa" (1882); "Grief and History," the group that surmounts the naval monument at Washington ; "Galatea" (1884) ; "Penelope" in the De Young Museum,[6] and Berkshire Museum;[7] "The Promised Land" in the Metropolitan Museum of Art;[8] " Miriam "; "Washington at Valley Forge"; "Peace Monument";[9] and " The Seraph Abdiel," from "Paradise Lost " (1886).
Among his portrait busts are those of Abraham Lincoln, William T. Sherman, David D. Porter, James G. Blaine, Francis Wayland, and Ulysses S. Grant (1886).