Quincy History

Quincy~

Massachusetts

Quincy Historical Society

Sprinq, 1986

Some Famous Quincy Sculptors

by H. Hobart Holly

with contributions from Evelyn S. Kilbourn

on the Kitsons, Edmund Quincy on

Richard B. Brooks, and Gerald T. Horrigan

on himself mid his father.

It was granite from Quincy's quarries that brought fame to what became known as The Granite City; but the granite industry encompassed more than just the quarries. With the quarrying industry came the stone-cutting industry which not only contributed to the fame but has lasted after the quarrying operations have ceased . From the early days the cutters worked with imported as well · as local stone, using the material best suited for a particular application. The sto~e-cutting industry was centered principally in South Quincy with some shops in West Quincy and elsewhere, but largely separate from the quarries. The cutters were a distinct trade with their own union which until recently had its national headquarters in Quincy. The Quincy cutters were among the most skilled in the world, and some possessed talents not available elsewhere. The story is told of a prominent Quincy resident who wanted the very finest cemetery monument for his family, so he went to the famous Tiffany Studios of New York for the work. He was pleased with the design submitted and later asked if he might observe the fashioning in progress. "Quite easily, Sir, it is being cut in Quincy." From the ranks of these highly skilled stone cutters some sculptors emerged. Equally important were the sculptors who · came here because of demand for their

Statue of Colonel Thomas Cass, designed by Richard Brooks, located in the Boston Public Garden.

creative art in association with the granite industry. The work of the sculptors has added an important page in Quincy's history; a page that has been largely forgotten. In their time these sculptors were highly regarded in Quincy and their work well known locally. Their commissions, whether executed here or elsewhere, their exhibitions and their career activities were well covered in the local press, frequently on the front page. Their works have passed the test of time, but the recognition of the artists in their town has diminished. Richard Edwin Brooks 1865-1919 Richard E. Brooks was born in Braintree, the son of John Brooks, a native of England and a spinner by trade . The nearby granite industry

in Quincy undoubtedly influenced the development of his artistic talents and his choice of a profession. In his early years, he carved and modelled panels in terracotta for the exterior of buildings and private homes from designs by his first teacher, T. H. Bartlett. After he had worked as an apprentice he opened his own business specializing in commercial sculpture . His first important commiSSion was for a bust of Governor William E. Russell of Massachusetts. Its success prompted him to go to Paris where his talent developed rapidly under the guidance of Aube' and Injalbert. Those were the days when the Symbolist Movement, the conveyance of impressions by suggestion rather than realism, launched by a group of French artists and writers was at its height. Brooks' statue Le Chant de la Vague reflected this influence, both mysterious and metaphysical. This graceful nude by the sea was cited for Honorable Mention in the Paris Salon of 1895. One of Brooks' most famous works was the result of the efforts and art appreciation of Josiah Quincy, father of Edmund and third Boston Mayor of the name, and the Art Commission that he created. The statue of Col. Thomas Cass in the Public Garden was dedicated in 1899. Every detail of its surface is finished to perfection. The volumes and proportions, from the tilt of the hat to the disengaged left leg, show complete relaxation. This work was awarded a Gold Medal at the Paris Continued on Page Two

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Famous Quincy Sculptors

Continued from Page One

Exposition ot 1900 and a Gold Medal at an exhibition the following year that included an Art Nouveau candlestick and a necklace designed by Brooks. He received a Silver Medal at San Francisco's Panama Pacific Exposition in 1915. From 1899 to 1905 Richard Brooks lived and worked in Quincy with his address at 36 and then 110 School Street. Most of his working life, however, he spent in France, . which proved a strong influence on his work. His work excelled in that subtlety of expression and lightness of touch so frequently found in the best French art. He made a portrait bust of the principal subject of Millet's famous painting The Angelus, not as the young woman of the painting but as the old, old woman known in her locality as "Mere Adele," her face deeply lined and weathered by the struggle of a peasant to gain a livelihood from the land of France. His Le Chant de la Vague, already mentioned, and The Bather were acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York which recently had a special exhibit of his works. Among his famous statues are ones of John Hanson and Charles Carroll of Carrollton in the Capitol in Washington. D.C.; William H. Seward and John H. McGraw in Seattle; Col. Wadsworth of the Athenaeum that bears his name; John Haynes; and Roger Ludlow in Hartford. His bronze bas-relief of E. F. Andrews. the school's first principal. is at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington. Edmund Quincy vividly recalls Richard Brooks. who made medallions of his grandfather, his father and himself which now hang in the Josiah Quincy House in Wollaston. Young Edmund was in bed with the measles and had to sit motionless while Mr. Brooks strained his eyes in the darkened room to sketch the profile for the medallion. Mr. Brooks also did a medallion of William Royall Tyler. Headmaster of Adams Academy.

Henry Hudson Kitson 1865-1947 Mr. Kitson was born in Huddersfield, England, and educated at Oxford and L'Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. He studied under Bonnaissieux in Paris. Henry Kitson served for a year in the Roumanian army and- rose to the rank of colonel. He executed busts of King Carol and Queen Elizabeth of Roumania and was knighted by the Ki in 1902.

Statue of Admiral Farragut designed by Henry Kitson. located in Marine Pork. South Boston.

Mr. Kitson·had a studio in Boston from 1886 to 1904 when he moved to Quincy and had his studio in the barn of his home on Park Lane. nOw Southern Artery. In 1893 he married. in Boston. Theo Alice Ruggles of Brookline, who had been his student and already an accomplished sculptor. The Kitsons separated around 1909 but he continued to be listed as a sculptor at the Quincy address until 1915 when his family moved to Sherborn, Massachusetts and he to Tyringham in the western part of the state. In Tyringham Mr. Kitson continued his sculpture, working on a clay model of St. Francis of Assisi the day before his death in 1947.

The best known of Mr. Kitson's works in this area are the Minute Man at Lexington, The Pilgrim Maid in Plymouth, and the Admiral Farragut in South Boston. In Boston are his Nathaniel P. Banks on the State House grounds, Robert Burns in the Back Bay Fens, and the Patrick A. Collins monument on Commonwealth Avenue in which Mrs. Kitson collaborated. At Vicksburg, Mississippi, he executed, with Mrs. Kitson, the statue of Confederate General Stephen Lee. the Minnesota monument, and supervised the erection of the Massachusetts monument. Among his other statues are Sir Richard Saltonstall at Watertown, Roger Conant at Salem, the Continental soldier at Washington's Headquarters at Newburgh, N.Y. and in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Louis C. Elson, Henry B. Endicott, President McKinley, General Tilghman, Admiral Selfridge, and General Martin I. Smith. Among the busts he . executed were those of James Bryce and Walt Whitman. Before his death he had just completed the plaster cast of a bust of Mark Hopkins for Williams College. Mr. Kitson created a number of works on religious subjects, and his Music of the Sea is at the Museum of Fine Arts. He did not complete the model for a one hundred sixty-five-foot­ high bronze statue of Christ that he hoped might go to a Balkan country as a symbol of peace. Henry Kitson received many honors for his work and was a leading American sculptor over his long career. He is listed in Who's Who in American Art. Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson 1871-1932 Theo Alice Ruggles was born in Brookline, the daughter' of Cyrus W. Ruggles who was for many years the postmaster of that town. She attended the public schools and early showed an interest in art that was encouraged by her family. Her modeling, carving and ice sculpture Continued on Page Three

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as a teenager attracted attent ion to her talent including that of the noted sculptor Henry H. Kitson, who became her mentor and in 1893 her husband . In Paris under Mr. Kitson's guidance she studied under the painter Pascal and the sculptor Bouvent. In 1889, when only eighteen years old, she exhibited her sculpture at the Paris Exposition, receiving honorable mention . The following year she exhibited at the Paris Salon and received a similar award, the first American woman to gain that distinction. After their marriage, the Kitsons made their home in Boston and had a studio there together. In 1904 they moved to Quincy and lived in a large house on Park Lane, now Southern Artery near Black's Creek. As a neighbor and girlhood friend of the younger daughter, one of the contributors to this paper, Mrs. Kilbourn, well remembers Mrs . Kitson. The studio where many notable works were executed was in the large barn, and strictly off limits to young visitors. The barn also housed many animals including a magnificent black stallion named Commander which Mrs. Kitson used as a model for her equestrian statues. Mrs. Kitson was an active member of the Quincy Women's Club where she chaired the Art Committee and headed other activities. She was the designer of the club's seal. The Kitsons s~parated around 1909. Around 1915 Mrs. Kitson moved from Quincy to Sherborn and later to Framingham where she lived until her death. Mrs. Kitson produced many works including over fifty public monuments. Probably best known to Quincy area residents are the Hingham war memorial, the impressive equestrian "Victory" at the Harbor, and the Kosiusko statue in the Public Garden in Boston. Mr. and Mrs. Kitson together did the Patrick A. Collins monument on Commonwealth Avenue. One of Mrs. Kitson's earliest works was the result of her exhibit at the Chicago Exposition of 1893.

The w 0 men 0 f M i chi g an commissioned two works symbolic of the oaks and pines of that state. These are now in the Detroit Museum of Fine Arts. Another early work was the statue of the Revoluntionary War hero Esek Hopkins in Providence. Of her Civil War memorials the best known are at Vicksburg, Mississippi. Her "Volunteer" is the feature of the Massachusetts monument. She executed the Iowa monument and collaborated with Mr. Kitson on the statue of Confederate General Stephen Lee . She did the monument for Newburyport, "Mother Bickerdyke" the Civil War nurse at Galesburg, Spanish War memorials at Minneapolis and Schenectady, the Minuteman at Framingham, and the Wounded Color Sergeant for Topsfield. The "Hiker" is at Arlington National Cemetery, and her statue of Lincoln in Providence. Mrs. Kitson executed many portrait busts and reliefs. She created an Adams medallion of copper from the dome of the First Parish Church. She designed a memorial tablet to "SCotty," the former Boston newsboy who was killed in World War I. At the time of her death she was working on a bust of Thomas A Friison .

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Theo A. Ru~gles Kitson won many honors an1 recognition ?f.her talents as a sculptor. She exhIbIted widely and received medals at major expositions. Hers was a significant contribution toward making the . name Kitson known nationally for sculptural excellence. Bruce Wilder Saville 1893-1939 Bruce Saville was born in Quincy of an old Quincy family, grew up in the Granite City, and received much of his education here. He was the son of George G. Saville and the brother of Clark Saville who was president of the Quincy Historical Society 1952-1955. After graduation from Quincy High School, he studied at the Boston Normal Art School with Cyrus E. Dallin, the noted sculptor, as his mentor. After a short period of study at the Museum of Fine Arts, he spent five years in the Quincy studio of Theo A. Kitson. His art career was then interrupted by service in World War I, an experience which undoubtedly gave him true feeling for the war memorials· that he would create . . His first significant work was a . bust of his father. This was followed in 1916 by a bust of Nathan Haskell Dole, the author, which drew high praise for its artistic merit. He also did a bust of Lt. Joseph T. Evans, USN, and the model for a heroic statue of John Hancock for the City of Quincy, p work that was never accomplished. The next year he completed a bust of Larz Anderson. After his war service, Saville returned to his studio in 1919. There he created the American trophy for the James Gordon Bennett balloon race, completed the Dole bust in bronze, and was commissioned by

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"The Infantryman." An exhibition included "Boy with Fish," a nude " study that received favorable ~ comment, and a sketch for a Quincy High School memorial bas relief. In 1921 he executed, for Westfield, a war memorial that was unusual in that it honored a regiment. In 1921 Bruce Saville was appointed Head of the Department Statue of Kosciusko, designed by Theo of Art at Ohio State University at Alice Kitson, located in the Boston (;onClnueu on ,.-age rour Public Garden.

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February 27, 1939, in his for ty-sixth year . John Horrigan 1864-1939 John Horrigan was born in the small town of Fayston, Vermont where he received a rudimentary education in the village school. The family moved to Fairlee , Vermont where he engaged in mining and stone cutting with Cornish workers. From the age of ten, John Horrigan's interest was sc ulpture, and he studied this subject in the spare time from his job. After about two years he took up modeling. In 1887 Horrigan came to South Quincy where he lived and worked for the rest of his life. His only education beyond the Fayston village school was in Quincy evenings schools and extensive reading in his home. John Horrigan married Helen J. Sullivan, a Quincy school teacher . He secured employment in the cutting and sculptoring works of Frederick . Barnicoat where ' Mr. Barnicoat, a co. . Cornishman, introduced him to working in clay and casting in ;. plaster. Mr. Horrigan received helpful advice from Richard E. Brooks who had just returned from "The Doughboy," designed by Bruce Saville and located in front of the Adams his art studies in Paris. His first work Academy Building, Quincy, Mass. in real clay modeling was for busts of John Boyle O'Reilly, whom he Continued From Page Three Wood memorial for the Boston City greatly admired after reading his Columbus, Ohio, a high tribute to Hospital, portrait sculptures of biography. He made a portrait from the artistic abilities of the 28-year­ Gen. Clarence R. Edwards and Col. life of Patrick Donahue, then editor old sculptor. While there, he Osbourne, a fountain with five and owner of The Boston Pilot, now executed the imposing war figures for Detroit, Michigan to the Boston Archdiocesan paper. memorial in Columbus. The central commemorate aviation achieve­ John Horrigan's experience as a figure was the statue of a young ment, war memorials for Gardner, stone cutter and the mastery of that soldier with the flush of a victor and Massachusetts and for Glens Falls, art had a great influence on his the dignity of America. In 1925, the New York, and the Wayne career as a sculptor. He admire