Larkin Goldsmith Mead (January 3, 1835 – October 15, 1910) was an American sculptor, working in a neoclassical style
Contents |
He was born at Chesterfield, New Hampshire, and was a pupil (1853-1855) of Henry Kirke Brown. During the early part of the American Civil War he was at the front for six months, with the Army of the Potomac, as an artist for Harper's Weekly; and in 1862-1865 he was in Italy, being for part of the time attached to the United States consulate at Venice, while William Dean Howells, his brother-in-law, was consul. He returned to America in 1865, but subsequently went back to Italy and lived at Florence where he died.
His first important work was a statue of Agriculture, designed to top the dome of the Vermont State House at Montpelier, Vermont. This work proved so successful that he was soon after commissioned to sculpt a statue of Ethan Allen for the State House portico.
Other principal works are: the Lincoln Tomb, a sepulchral monument to President Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois; Ethan Allen (1876), National Statuary Hall, United States Capitol, Washington; a heroic marble The Father of Waters, Minneapolis City Hall; Triumph of Ceres, made for the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, and a large bust of Lincoln in the Hall of Inscriptions at the Vermont State House.
His brother William Rutherford Mead (1846-1928) was a well-known architect, the Mead of McKim, Mead, and White.
He is buried in the Cimitero Evangelico degli Allori in the southern suburb of Florence, Galluzzo (Italy).