Felix de Weldon

Felix de Weldon with Harry S. Truman in 1949
USMC War Memorial at night.

Felix Weihs de Weldon (April 12, 1907 – June 3, 2003) was an Austrian-born American sculptor. His most famous piece is the Marine Corps War Memorial of five U.S. Marines and one sailor raising the flag of the United States on Iwo Jima during World War II, and the National Monument (Malaysia).

Biography

Felix de Weldon was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary on April 12, 1907. He received his early education at St. Egichin's Grammar School. In 1925, he earned an A.B. from Marchetti College,[1] a preparatory college.[2] From the University of Vienna's Academy of Creative Arts and School of Architecture, he earned his M.A. and M.S. degrees in 1927 and his PhD in 1929.

De Weldon first received notice as a sculptor at the age of 17, with his statue of Austrian educator and diplomat Professor Ludo Hartman.[1] In the 1920s, he joined artist's communes in France, Italy and Spain. De Weldon eventually moved to London, where he gained a number of commissions, among them a portrait sculpture of George V.

A consequential trip to Canada to sculpt Prime Minister Mackenzie King brought De Weldon to North America, and he decided to settle in the United States. De Weldon enlisted in the United States Navy during World War II and was discharged with the rank of Painter Second Class (PTR 2).[2] He became a United States citizen in 1945.[1]

In 1950, President Harry Truman appointed de Weldon to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.[3] In 1956, he was re-appointed by President Dwight Eisenhower, and again in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy. In 1959, he received an honorary knighthood for his service to the British Crown. (As he was not a Royal subject he was not entitled to be styled as "Sir Felix de Weldon.”)

In 1951, De Weldon acquired the historic Beacon Rock estate in Newport, Rhode Island, where he lived until 1996, when he lost the property and most of his assets to financial hardship.

Felix de Weldon died on June 3, 2003.

Work

Bronze of Senator Bob Bartlett in the National Statuary Hall

Approximately 1,200 de Weldon sculptures are located on seven continents. (A de Weldon monument of Richard Byrd is on McMurdo Sound, in Antarctica).

At the conclusion of the war, the Congress of the United States commissioned de Weldon to construct the statue for the Iwo Jima memorial in the realist tradition, based upon the famous photograph of Joe Rosenthal, of the Associated Press agency, taken on 23 February 1945. De Weldon made sculptures from life of three of the six men raising the flag. The other three, who had died in action later, were sculpted from photographs. De Weldon took nine years to make the memorial, and was assisted by hundreds of other sculptors. The result is the 100-ton bronze statue which is on display in Arlington, Virginia.

De Weldon also contributed in creating Malaysia's Tugu Negara (National Monument) when the country's first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman saw the USMC War Memorial statue in his visit to America in October 1960 and personally met him for favour to design the monument. De Weldon was later conferred with the title Tan Sri, the Malaysian equivalent of a high-ranking knighthood.

De Weldon died on June 2, 2003 at age 96 in Woodstock, Virginia. De Weldon is survived by his wife, Joyce Swetland de Weldon, of Warwick, Rhode Island, and two sons Byron & Daniel DeWeldon. Daniel is collaborating with Allen Nalasco on a biopic of his father's life titled "DeWeldon - The Man Behind The Monuments". Daniel will play the part of Felix during the height of his career.

Images

Partial list of Public Sculpture

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Who's Who in Marine Corps History
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Ness, Oral History Interview, 1969.
  3. ↑ Thomas E. Luebke, ed. Civic Art: A Centennial History of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, 2013): Appendix B, p. 543.

Malaysian National Monument (Tugu Negara)Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

References

External links