John Quincy Adams Ward

John Quincy Adams Ward
(c.1900)
Born	June 29, 1830 (1830-06-29) Urbana, Ohio
Died	May 1, 1910 (1910-05-02) (aged 79) New York City
Nationality	American
Known for	Sculpture

John Quincy Adams Ward (June 29, 1830 – May 1, 1910) was an American sculptor, who is most familiar for his over-lifesize standing statue of George Washington on the steps of Federal Hall on Wall Street.

Early years

He was born in Urbana, Ohio, a city that had been founded by his grandfather Col. William Ward, and went to live with his sister in Brooklyn, New York, where he trained under the well-established sculptor Henry Kirke Brown, who carved "J.Q.A. Ward, asst." on his equestrian monument of George Washington in Union Square. His younger brother was the artist, Edgar Melville Ward. Ward went to Washington in 1857, where he made a name with portrait busts of men in public life. In 1861 he worked for the Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts, providing models for decorative objects including gilt-bronze sword hilts for the Union Army.^[1] Ames also was one of the largest brass, bronze and iron foundries in the US.^[2]

Ward set up a studio in New York City in 1861 and was elected to the National Academy of Design the following year; he was their president till 1874. In 1882 a new New York studio on 52nd Street was designed for him by his friend, Richard Morris Hunt who was to collaborate with him on many projects over the years.

Ward was married three times.

Career

Nineteenth-century American commissions for sculpture were largely confined to portrait busts and monuments, where Ward was preeminent in his generation. Sculptors also made a living selling bronze reductions of their public works; Ward made use of new galvanoplastic duplicating techniques; many of Ward's reductions and galvanoplastic and die-stamped relief panels survive.

In 1903, with the collaboration of Paul Wayland Bartlett, he made the models for the marble pediment sculptures for the New York Stock Exchange. The pediment was carved by the Piccirilli Brothers.

Ward was a founder and president of the National Sculpture Society (1893–1904) and president of the National Academy of Design (1874). He was one of the first trustees in 1897 for the American Academy in Rome.^[3]

He died at his home in New York City in 1910.^[4] A copy of his Indian Hunter stands at his gravesite in Urbana,^[5] and his Urbana home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.^[6] His sketchbooks are conserved at the Albany Institute of History & Art.

Public sculpture

• 1866 Indian Hunter, in Central Park, Manhattan, New York City
• 1867 The Good Samaritan Ether Monument, Boston Public Garden, Boston, Massachusetts
• 1868 "Matthew Perry Monument", Touro Park, Newport, Rhode Island
• 1869 "Seventh Regiment Memorial", Central Park, New York City.^[7] The bronze of a standing Union soldier is set on a high granite pedestal along the West Carriage Drive at 69th Street. Actor and dramatist Steele MacKaye, who served in the 7th Regiment, was its model.
• 1871 Major General John F. Reynolds Statue, Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
• 1872 William Shakespeare, Central Park, New York City^[8]
• 1878 William Gilmore Simms, White Point Garden, Charleston, South Carolina
• 1879 Major General George Henry Thomas, Thomas Circle, Washington, D.C.
• 1881 "Victory" (statue), Yorktown Victory Monument, Yorktown, Virginia
• 1881 General Daniel Morgan Monument, Spartanburg, South Carolina
• 1882 George Washington, Federal Hall, New York City
• 1884 "The Pilgrim" (statue), Central Park, New York City
• 1887 James A. Garfield Monument, Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.
• 1891 Henry Ward Beecher Monument, Cadman Plaza, Brooklyn, New York
• 1893 Governor Horace Fairbanks, St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, St. Johnsbury, Vermont
• 1898 Equestrian statue of General Winfield S. Hancock, Smith Memorial Arch, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• 1903 Integrity Protecting the Works of Man, pediment of the New York Stock Exchange Building, Manhattan, New York City
• 1910 Financier August Belmont, Newport, Rhode Island
• 1916 General Phillip H. Sheridan Statue, East Capitol Park, Albany, New York (installed posthumously)

Gallery

• 

  The Pilgrim, 1884, Central Park, New York City
• 

  7th Regiment Monument, Central Park, New York City
• 

  Major General John F. Reynolds Statue, Gettysburg National Military Park
• 

  Major General George Henry Thomas, Thomas Circle, Washington, D.C.
• 

  Statue of George Washington, Federal Hall, New York City
• 

  James A. Garfield Monument, United States Capitol grounds Washington, D.C.
• 

  Ether Monument, Boston Public Garden
• 

  Ether Monument, Boston Public Garden
• 

  Israel Putnam Statue, Bushnell Park, Hartford, CT

Integrity Protecting the Works of Man on the pediment of the New York Stock Exchange Building, Integrity, in the center, wears the winged cap of Mercury, the god of commerce. The figures on her left represent mining and agriculture, and on her right, industry. The original pediment, carved from Georgia marble, weighed 90 tons, but time and pollution wore away at it, and in 1936 it was replaced by a copper and lead replica which weighs 10 tons.^[9]

References

Notes

Further reading

• Adams, Adeline. J. Q. A. Ward, An Appreciation (New York, 1911)
• Adams, Adeline. John Quincy Adams Ward (New York, 1912)
• Durante, Dianne. Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide (New York University Press, 2007): description and discussion of Ward's Washington, Greeley, Holley, Conkling, Dodge, and Shakespeare, all in New York, with a list of Ward's other works in the five boroughs.
• Sharp, Lewis I. John Quincy Adams Ward, dean of American sculpture: with a catalogue raisonné. (Newark: University of Delaware, 1985)
• Sharp, Lewis I. New York City Public Sculpture: By 19th-Century American Artists (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1974) page 12
• Taft, Lorado, History of American Sculpture (New York, 1905)

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to John Quincy Adams Ward.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Ward, John Quincy Adams.

• Art and the empire city: New York, 1825-1861, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on John Quincy Adams Ward (see index)
• Ohio University, J.Q.A. Ward collection Photographs of his studio, works, friends, etc. Correspondence etc. (pdf file)
• Ohio historical markers
• Albany Institute of History & Art
• Letters to and from John Quincy Adams Ward