Henry Jackson Ellicott

Henry Jackson Ellicott, from National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (1904).

Henry Jackson Ellicott (June 22 or 23, 1847 in Annapolis, Maryland – February 11, 1901 in Washington, D.C.) was an American sculptor and architectural sculptor, best known for his work on American Civil War monuments.

Biography

Plaster statue of Abraham Lincoln, in United States Capitol rotunda, August 1868.

The son of James P. Ellicott and Fannie Adelaide Ince, he attended Rock Hill College School in Ellicott City, Maryland, and Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C. He studied at Georgetown Medical College, and may have served in the Civil War.[1]

At age 19, he completed a larger-than-life plaster statue of Abraham Lincoln – likely an entry in the Lincoln Monument Association's competition for a marble statue – that was exhibited for two years in the United States Capitol rotunda. The competition was won by sculptor Lot Flannery, whose statue is at District of Columbia City Hall. The fate of Ellicott's Lincoln statue is unknown.[2]

He studied at the National Academy of Design, 1867–70, under William Henry Powell and Emanuel Leutze; and later studied under Constantino Brumidi.[3]

His first two commissions were for monuments at Mount Calvary Cemetery in Lothian, Maryland (1870) and Greenwood Cemetery in Laurel, Maryland. He was the likely modeler of an Infantryman statue for J. W. Fiske Architectural Metals, Inc. of New York City, that was mass-produced and used in numerous municipal Civil War monuments. Company records list the sculptor's name as "Allicot."[4]

He moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and modeled architectural sculpture on buildings for the 1876 Centennial Exposition.[5] He remained in Philadelphia, and exhibited occasionally at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts between 1878 and 1891.[6]

Ellicott was appointed Superintendent and Chief Modeler for the U.S. Treasury Department in 1889, responsible for all federal monuments. He moved to Washington, D.C., where he lived until his death.

Selected works

Civil War monuments

Attributed works

References

  1. ↑ An 1896 New York Times article implies that the 16-year-old Ellicott was present at the July 1863 Battle of Gettysburg.
  2. ↑ Louis A. Warren, "The Curious Story of Ellicott's Lincoln," Lincoln Herald, vol. 48-49, 1946.
  3. ↑ Charles Edwin Fairman, Works of Art in the United States Capitol Building: Including Biographies of the Artists (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1913), p. 22.
  4. ↑ Fiske Infantryman from JAIC online.
  5. ↑ "Henry Jackson Ellicott," Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Rossiter Johnson, ed. (1904).
  6. ↑ Susan James-Gadzinski and Mary Mullen-Cunningham, "Henry J. Ellicott," American Sculpture in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997), pp. 106-07.
  7. ↑ Closeup of the building from Boston Public Library via Flickr.
  8. ↑ Company Timeline from New England Mutual Life Insurance Company.
  9. ↑ George M. Dallas bust from U.S. Senate.
  10. ↑ General Spinner
  11. ↑ Holyoke Soldiers' Monument from Library of Congress.
  12. ↑ Colonel Cameron
  13. ↑ Martha's Vineyard Infantryman from The Washington Times.
  14. ↑ Charles Evans from USGW Archives.
  15. ↑ Charles Evans from SIRIS.
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