Karl Bitter

For the German minister of finance and writer on music, see Karl Hermann Bitter.

Karl Bitter
Karl Bitter in 1907.
Born	Karl Theodore Francis Bitter (1867-12-06)December 6, 1867 Vienna
Died	April 9, 1915(1915-04-09) (aged 47)
Alma mater	Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Spouse(s)	Marie A. Sherrill

Karl Theodore Francis Bitter (December 6, 1867 – April 9, 1915) was an Austrian-born American sculptor best known for his architectural sculpture, memorials and residential work.

Life and career

The son of Carl and Henrietta (Reitter) Bitter,^[1] he was born and trained in Vienna. His early training took place at the Kunstgewerbeschule (the imperial school for the applied arts), and after that at the Kunstakademie (the Academy of Fine Arts). At the Academy, he studied with August Kühne and Edmund Heller.^[2] Upon his graduation, he was apprenticed to an architectural sculptor, Kaffsack. This was the period that the Ringstraße was being built in Vienna, and a large number of decorated buildings were being built.

In 1889, while on leave from the army, he immigrated to the United States out of protest regarding military service during peacetime. He was unable to return to Austria for many years because of his desertion. He later was pardoned by Emperor Franz Josef of Austria, who hoped to lure the (by then) famous sculptor back to Vienna.^[3]

Karl Bitter in 1905.

Upon arriving in New York City, Bitter applied for citizenship, and set to work as an assistant with a firm of house decorators. While employed with this firm, he competed for the Astor memorial bronze gates of Trinity Church and won, being but 21 years of age at the time. The work gave him sufficient capital to build and establish a small studio on Thirteenth Street.^[1]

About this time, Bitter was discovered by Richard Morris Hunt, the architect of choice of many of New York’s rich and famous. From that time on Bitter was never without work. After working as a sculptor at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and as director at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York in 1901, Bitter’s extraordinary organizational skills led him to be named head of the sculpture programs at both the 1904 St. Louis Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, where Lee Lawrie trained with his guidance, and the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition held in San Francisco, California. In 1906/1907, he presided over the National Sculpture Society.

Among the awards won by Bitter were the silver medal of the Paris Exposition, 1900; the gold medal of the Pan-American Exposition, 1901; a gold medal at Philadelphia, 1902; and the gold medal at the St. Louis Exposition, 1904. He was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Sciences, vice-president (1906-08 and 1914-15); the National Academy of Design, to which he was elected in 1902; the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Players' Club, Century Club, and vice-president of the Architectural League in 1904-06 and 1909-11, and member of the Art Commission, New York, from 1912-15.^[1]^[2]

Karl Bitter at work.

Although Bitter arose out of the Classical/Naturalist styles he was increasingly turning towards a more modern approach to sculpture. Much of the work in Buffalo and St. Louis was allegorical in nature. Where this would have taken him will never be known, because he was killed in a tragic accident in 1915 when, while leaving the Metropolitan Opera in New York, a car jumped the curb and struck him down. His wife survived the accident as he had pushed her out of the way of the oncoming car.^[1]

Like many of the sculptors and painters of the day, Bitter frequently employed the services of the muse and history’s first "super model", Audrey Munson. On 30 June 1901, he married Marie A. Sherrill, of Cincinnati, Ohio. They had three children: Francis T. R. Bitter, Mariette C. E. Bitter and John F. Bitter.^[1] Their son Francis Bitter, born in 1902, became a prominent American physicist.

For a time, Bitter's studio was located in a building, known as The Castle in Weehawken, New Jersey. The Castle was created as a part of the Eldorado Amusement Park.^[4]

Architectural sculpture

East Doors and Tympanum, Trinity Church, New York (1891).

East Doors & Tympanum, Trinity Church, New York, 1891
Elements Controlled and Uncontrolled – Administration Building at the Chicago World's Fair, 1893
Broad Street Station, Pennsylvania Railroad – Frank Furness architect, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania:
- Spirit of Transportation, 1894; now located in 30th Street Station.^[5]
- Pediment over 15th Street, 1894, destroyed.
Horace Jayne House – Frank Furness architect, 19th & Delancey Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1895
Biltmore Estate – Richard Morris Hunt architect, Asheville, North Carolina, 1895
St Paul Building – George B. Post architect, NYC, 1896
- When this building was demolished in 1958, Bitter's three caryatids ended up at Holliday Park in Indianapolis, Indiana after some debate about sending them to Vienna, Austria.^[3]
Decorations on the Dewey Arch – New York, 1899
Metropolitan Museum of Art – Richard Morris Hunt architect, NYC, 1901; Bitter's models of the Arts were never executed in stone, but the uncarved blocks remain on the Fifth Avenue facade.
United States Customs House – Cass Gilbert architect, NYC 1906
Cleveland Trust Company – George B. Post architect, Cleveland Ohio, 1907
First National Bank – Milton J. Dyer architect, Cleveland Ohio, 1908
Cuyahoga County Courthouse – Cleveland Ohio, 1908, 1914
Wisconsin State Capitol – George Post architect, Madison Wisconsin 1908, 1910, 1912

Monuments and other works

Detail of the Villard Memorial.

Dr. William Pepper, College Hall, University of Pennsylvania, 1896.^[6] A replica of this is at the Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Louisiana Purchase Group – St. Louis Missouri, 1904
Thomas Jefferson Missouri History Museum, St. Louis Missouri, 1913^[7]
Louisiana Purchase Bronze, Missouri History Museum, St. Louis Missouri, 1913
General Franz Sigel – NYC, 1907
Dr. James Burrill Angell Memorial – University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1909
Henry Tappen Memorial – University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1912
Carl Schurz Monument – Morningside Park, New York City, 1913
Thomas Jefferson – University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, 1915
Thomas Lowry Monument – Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1915
Pomona for Pulitzer Fountain, NYC (completed by Isidore Konti and Karl Gruppe), 1915
Andrew Dickson White – Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 1915
Depew Memorial Fountain – Indiana World War Memorial Plaza, completed by Alexander Stirling Calder, Indianapolis 1915

Selected funerary or cemetery works

John Erastrus Hubbard Memorial – Montpelier, Vermont, 1903 (John Erastrus Hubbard at Find a Grave)
Henry Villard Memorial – Sleepy Hollow, New York, 1904
Prehn Memorial – Passaic, New Jersey, 1911
Louise Dellmayer Kasson Memorial^[8] – Utica, New York, 1915

Gallery

The studio in Manhattan that Bitter shared with Giuseppe Moretti.
Bronze bust of architect Richard Morris Hunt (1891), National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C.
Pediment over 15th Street, Broad Street Station, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1894, destroyed).
The Spirit of Transportation, 30th Street Station, Philadelphia, PA (1894).
Horace Jayne House, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1895), Frank Furness, architect.
Dr. William Pepper (1899), Free Library of Philadelphia.
Triumphal Bridge, Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, NY (1901), John M. Carrere, architect.
Symbols of Government (1907) Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, New York
Wisconsin State Capitol, Madison, Wisconsin (1908–12), George B. Post, architect.
Alexander Hamilton (1914), Cuyahoga County Courthouse, Cleveland Ohio.
Thomas Lowry Memorial statue, Minneapolis, Minnesota (1915).
Andrew Dickson White statue, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (1915).
Thomas Jefferson (1915), University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.
Carl Schurz Monument in Morningside Park, Manhattan, New York City (1913).