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New York Architecture
Images- Central Park Richard
Morris Hunt Memorial
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Located on the perimeter of the
Central Park and across from the Frick
Museum, is this monument to Richard
Morris Hunt an American architect of great prominence whose defining signature emulated the French
Beaux-Arts style. Several blocks uptown, one can see a fine example of his artistic magnitude in the facade of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art.
Hunt’s legacy is celebrated by renowned sculptor Daniel Chester French,
whose most renowned work is the gigantic seated figure of Abraham Lincoln
in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Here, the setting for the
sculptures is an exedra - a semicircular portico with a curved bench -
done in neo-Renaissance style. At its center is a bust of Hunt, with the
two allegorical statues of Architecture first and then Painting and
Sculpture standing guard at both ends of the semicircular colonnade.
Inscribed on tablets around the exedra are the names of each of the
organizations in which Hunt played a major role.
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Daniel Chester French was approached in 1896
by the Art Society of New York to design and create a monument to Richard
Morris Hunt, a seminal figure in American architecture.
Because of Hunt's involvement with painting
and architecture, French decided to have the monument contain three
sculptures: a bust of Hunt and two allegorical statues, each representing
painting and sculpture, and architecture. The monument, which includes two
benches and rows of columns, was dedicated on October 31, 1898 and the
statues of Painting and Sclupture and Architecture were completed in 1900
and installed in 1901.
The bust of Hunt rests on a pedestal which
has the following engraved upon it:
To
RICHARD MORRIS HUNT
October 31, 1828
July 3, 1895
In Recognition
Of His Services To
The Cause of Art
In America
This Memorial
Was erected 1898 by
The Art Society
of New York
The monument may be found in New York City
on the east side of Central Park, at the intersection of Fifth Avenue
between 70th and 71st Street.
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The allegorical rendering of "Painting
and Sculpture" is on the south (left facing) side of the Hunt
Memorial. The statue is holding, in her left hand, a palatte and a small
model of the footless, handless "Dionysos" taken from the east
pediment of the Parthenon, and in her right hand, a sculptor's mallet is
found. (photo and text Douglas Yeo).
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The allegorical rendering of
"Architecture" is on the north (right facing) side of the Hunt
Memorial. She holds in her hands a model of one of Hunt's most famous
works, the Adminstration Building from the 1893 World's Fair. (photo and
text Douglas Yeo).
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Monument
Beaux-Arts |
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contact
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nyc-architecture.com
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links
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thanks to www.centralpark2000.com &
www.centralparknyc.org
and to Douglas Yeo, www.yeodoug.com
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