International studio (40.1910)

The Work of J. O. A. Ward

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE BY JOHN QUINCY

THE MALL, CENTRAL PARK ADAMS WARD

NEW YORK

to have been carried in the veteran sculptor's mem-
ory—there were busts of vice-President Hannibal
Hamlin; of Dr. Valentine Mott; of Joshua Gid-
clings; of James T. Brady; a colossal one of Abra-
ham Cowles in Newark, N. J.; of William H. Van-
derbilt; of Dr. Goodale at Columbus, Ohio; of Mr.
Corcoran in marble; of Governor Horace Fairbanks

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in marble in the public library at St. Johnsbury,
Vt.; of Orville H. Dewey; of Dr. Jones in Washing-
ton, D. C, in marble; of Col. Elliot F. Shepard,
marble; of Joseph Drexel, marble, in Washington,
D. C, and others. Many of these are of heroic or
colossal size. In collaboration with Charles R.
Lamb he executed a portrait of Professor Murray
for a large tablet in the chapel of Princeton
University.

One of his first works, since destroyed we believe,
was an alto-relief founded on an incident related of
Henry Hudson's voyage up the river which bears
his name, representing an Indian breaking and
burning his arrows in sign of peace, while a little
girl looks on. This was intended for the Capitol at
Albany. On pinnacles surrounding the cupola of
the State Capitol at Hartford, Conn., are five of Mr.
Ward's few emblematic statues; one of the most im-
portant of these symbolic figures is the colossal
Poetry in the rotunda of the Congressional Library,
Washington, one of the eight statues typifying as
many characteristic features of civilized life and
thought which are set upon the entablature over the
engaged columns, above the ring of portrait statues
of the great artists, poets, statesmen, scientists, etc.
The selection of the sculptors to be commissioned
in the work on this building was made on the advice
of Mr. Ward, president of the National Sculpture
Society, and of Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Olin
Warner, whom he associated with himself on this
very important committee.

On the Dewey Arch, in New York City, 1899,
Mr. Ward was awarded the crowning work, the
great group on the summit in which Victory in her
sea chariot, drawn by six rampant sea horses, swept
onward to triumph. This Victory was inspired by
the Nike of Samothrace, taken as a theme. And,
finally, the colossal groups on the pediment of the
new Stock Exchange in New York (1903), in which
the bigness lies as much in the original conception
as in the imposing execution, the bulk and power of
the figures taking the place of the abundant detail
and the methodical filling of the great triangular
space usually adopted for this most difficult sculp-
ture problem. The central figure typifies Integrity,
the personification of business honor—possibly
more typically appropriate here than on any other
house of commerce; with outstretched hands she
assures all the world that the spoken word is the
bond. At her feet are two cherubs; on her right,
the two figures represent the mechanical arts and
electricity; on her left, the sturdy agriculturist bends
under the weight of his produce, and his woman-
kind, young and graceful, stands just behind him.