Caspar Buberl

Caspar Buberl

Soldiers and Sailors Memorial, Hillsboro, Ohio
Born 1834
Kynšperk nad Ohří, Czech Republic
Died August 22, 1899(1899-08-22)
New York, New York, United States
Nationality American
Known for Sculpture

Caspar Buberl (1834 – August 22, 1899) was an American sculptor. He is best known for his Civil War monuments, for the terra cotta relief panels on the Garfield Memorial in Cleveland, Ohio (depicting the various stages of James Garfield's life), and for the 1,200-foot (370 m)-long frieze on the Pension Building in Washington, D.C..

Biography

Born in Königsberg, Bohemia, (now Kynšperk nad Ohří, Czech Republic), as a young man Buberl studied art in Prague and Vienna before immigrating to the United States in 1854 to train under sculptor Robert Eberhard Launitz.[1] In 1882 Montgomery C. Meigs was chosen to design and construct the new Pension Building, now the National Building Museum, in Washington D. C. and, in doing so, broke away from the established Greco-Roman models that had been the basis of government buildings in Washington up until then, and was to continue to be following the Pension Building's completion. Meigs based his design on Italian Renaissance precedents, notably Rome's Palazzo Farnese and Plazzo della Cancelleria.

Included in his design was a 1,200-foot (370 m)-long sculptured frieze executed by Buberl. Since creating a work of sculpture of that size was well out of Meigs' budget, he had Buberl create 28 different scenes [totaling 69 feet (21 m) in length), which were then mixed and slightly modified to create the continuous parade that includes over 1,300 individual figures. Because of the way that the 28 sections were modified and intermixed, it is only by somewhat careful examination that the frieze reveals itself to be the same figures repeated some eighteen times. The sculpture includes infantry, navy, artillery, cavalry and medical components as well as a good deal of the supply and quartermaster functions, since Meigs had overseen the latter two functions during the Civil War.

Meigs insisted that any teamster included in the Quartermaster panel "must be a negro, a plantation slave, freed by war". This figure was ultimately to assume a position in the center, over the west entrance to the building.

Buberl created dozens of Civil War statues and monuments for various cities and states, including several for New York veterans associations to be placed on the Gettysburg Battlefield and a bronze bust of President Abraham Lincoln, which was recently sold for $5,800.[2] His impressive New York State Monument crowns Cemetery Hill, and a number of individual memorials for specific regiments dot the battlefield.

He died in New York City.

Leading works

Monuments on the Gettysburg battlefield

111th NY Infantry Monument
New York State Monument

Other Civil War monuments

Death of General Reynolds, detail of NY State Monument

Other memorials and monuments

Architectural sculpture

Columbia Protecting Science and Industry, Washington D.C.

Pension Building frieze

Images of the James A. Garfield Memorial

Images of Hartford memorial

Images of Buffalo memorial

References

  1. ↑ Grissom, Carol A. (2009). Zinc Sculpture in America, 1850-1950. Associated University Press. p. 550.
  2. ↑ "Caspar Buberl". Fine Art May 2007. Rago Arts and Auction Center.
  3. ↑ "Raphael Semmes, (sculpture)". Art Inventories Catalog. Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 5 February 2016.
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