Charles Grafly

Charles Allan Grafly, Jr. (December 3, 1862 – May 5, 1929) was an American sculptor, and teacher. Instructor of Sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for 37 years, his students included Beatrice Fenton, Paul Manship, Albin Polasek, and Walker Hancock.

He created heroic sculpture for international expositions and war memorials, but also was noted for his small bronzes and portrait busts. His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Academy of Design, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and other museums.

Education

Grafly was born in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the youngest of the 8 children of Charles and Elizabeth (Simmons) Grafly.

To improve his understanding of anatomy and his skill at carving figures, he began attending night classes at the Spring Garden Institute. He studied under Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts beginning in 1884, In 1889 he gained admittance to the École des Beaux Arts, but only stayed one year. PAFA created the position of "Instructor of Sculpture" for Grafly, and under him the sculpture department was put "on an equal footing with painting for the first time".

Expositions

Fountain of Man

Grafly and architect Charles Dudley Arnold were commissioned to create a fountain for the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, in Buffalo, New York. Sculptor Lorado Taft wrote: <blockquote>When opportunity comes, and with it demand for a man's highest abilities, he who has always done his best has himself well in hand. Such an opportunity came to Mr. Grafly at the Pan-American Exposition. While the sculptural decorations of that most charming of fairs were as a rule well suited to their purpose, and contributed much to its beauty, there were few features of striking originality. The one which stands out in memory as of permanent value, as a lasting contribution to the art of this country, is Mr. Grafly's "Fountain of Man".</blockquote>

Louisiana Purchase Exposition

thumb|Vérité (1904), Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis.

Grafly served as a member of the Art Jury for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, Following sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward's withdrawal, Grafly created a heroic-size seated figure of Thomas Jefferson for the Cascade Garden. His Vérité (Truth) was carved in marble, and installed in a niche flanking the main entrance to the Palace of Fine Arts (now the Saint Louis Art Museum). His sculpture group, Electricity, was installed over an entrance to the Palace of Electricity.

Pioneer Mother Monument

thumb|left|Pioneer Mother Monument (1913–15), Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco.

Grafly's best known sculpture is probably the Pioneer Mother Monument (1913–15), in San Francisco, California. John E. D. Trask, a museum administrator and former managing director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, headed the Fine Arts Department for the planned 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. The Pioneer Mother Monument Association raised $22,500 for the project, and Trask commissioned Grafly to create the sculpture in 1913. Grafly's final model went in another direction, granting the woman and her two naked toddlers a simple dignity. The casting took longer than expected, and the sculpture was not in place for the exhibition's March 2, 1915 opening.</blockquote>

Relocation of the monument to San Francisco's Civic Center never happened, and the sculpture was rediscovered during the Great Depression, weather-beaten and vandalized, amidst the ruins of the 1915 world's fair. raised money to restore the sculpture for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. After the exposition, it was installed in Golden Gate Park and rededicated on December 8, 1940.

1895 Cotton States and International Exposition, Atlanta, Georgia, Portrait of My Mother. The bust was awarded a silver medal.
1901 Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, New York – The Vulture of War, The Symbol of Life, From Generation to Generation, portrait busts of his mother and wife, an architectural medal for Cornell University. The group was awarded a gold medal.
1902 South Carolina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition, Charleston, South Carolina – The Symbol of Life, From Generation to Generation. Grafly served as a member of the Art Jury. His works were not in competition for awards.
1910 Exposition Internacional de Arte del Centenario, Buenos Aires, In Much Wisdom.
1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, California – Marble Head [Ideal Head of a Woman?], The Oarsman, Maidenhood; portrait busts of W. Elmer Schofield, George Harding, Dr. Joseph Price, Edward W. Redfield, Joseph R. DeCamp, Edwin Swift Clymer, Henry L. Viereck, William M. Paxton and Thomas P. Anshutz. Grafly served as an advisor to the exposition. His works were not in competition for awards.
1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Aeneas and Anchises, The Symbol of Life, From Generation to Generation, Head of War (Meade Memorial); portrait busts of W. Elmer Schofield, Thomas P. Anshutz, and The Evangelist Felix. Grafly served as director of its Department of Fine Arts and head of the Art Jury. His works were not in competition for awards.

Other works

Portrait busts

thumb|130px|The Entomologist —Henry L. Viereck (1909), PAFA.

Grafly modeled dozens of portrait heads and busts; many as commissions, but also of friends and family members. In 1898, he modeled a bust of Hugh H. Breckenridge, the first in what became a three-decade series of busts of fellow artists. The sitter sometimes painted a portrait of Grafly in exchange. Lorado Taft claimed "there is no sculptor in this country who can make a finer bust".</blockquote>

In the 1920s, Grafly created four busts of historical figures for the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, in Bronx, New York City.

New York Custom House

Grafly modeled two of the colossal figures for the façade of the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in Manhattan, New York City. His allegorical figure of England (1903–07) depicts a young Queen Victoria dressed in armor, holding the wand of Hermes and accompanied by the shield of St. George and a ship's wheel.

Meade Memorial

thumb|left|General [[George Gordon Meade Memorial (1915-27), Washington, D.C.]]

The most prestigious commission of Grafly's career was the Major General George Gordon Meade Memorial (1915–27), a monument for the National Mall in Washington, D.C. General Meade (1815–1872) had been commander of the decisive Union victory at Gettysburg, and the memorial was the gift of Pennsylvania to the nation.—a site now mostly covered by the Capitol Reflecting Pool. This was opposite and slightly north of the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial.

On January 21, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson signed a joint resolution of Congress creating the federal commission for the Meade Memorial. Grafly's sculpture program went through several iterations before it was granted preliminary approval by the D.C. Commission of Fine Arts, three years later. The primary figure of General Meade, dressed in his Civil War uniform, faces south. He is flanked by six nude allegorical figures – Loyalty, Fame and Energy on the west side; Chivalry, Progress and Military Courage on the east side – representing qualities that Grafly "believed were necessary for the character of a great general". Grafly's concept was to depict him in the prime of his manhood—as a burly, bare-chested Roman general, flanked by tigers and straddling a chariot-like cannon. Grafly invited his former student Albert Laessle to model the tigers, and worked on the project, 1921–26, before setting it aside to complete the Meade Memorial. The National Sculpture Society awarded him its 1905 J. Q. A. Ward Prize. At its 1913 annual exhibition, PAFA awarded him the first Widener Gold Medal for Sculpture for his portrait bust of Thomas Anshutz. The Philadelphia Water Color Club awarded him its 1916 Lea First Prize (for drawing). The National Academy of Design awarded him its 1919 Watrous Gold Medal, for his portrait bust of Childe Hassam. and the Concord Art Association awarded him its 1922 Medal of Honor for the same work.

Grafly was a founding member of the National Sculpture Society (1893), served on its council, and was later elected a Fellow. He was elected an Associate of the National Academy of Design in 1902, and an Academician in 1905. (Robert Henri painted Grafly's NAD diploma portrait.)

Grafly's protégé, Walker Hancock, considered him "the pre-eminent instructor of sculpture in this country", and came to PAFA in 1920 specifically to study under him. The pall bearers at his funeral included former students Albert Laessle and Albin Polasek; and artists Hugh Breckenridge, Edward Redfield, Robert Henri and Albert Rosenthal. Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Walker Hancock, Charles Harley, Albert Laessle, Paul Manship, Eleanor Mary Mellon, Louis Milione, Albin Polasek, Dudley Pratt, Lawrence Tenney Stevens, and Katherine Lane Weems.

The collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts includes about twenty Grafly bronzes. The Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University possesses more than two hundred of his works, mostly plaster casts, a bequest of Dorothy Grafly Drummond (the artist's daughter).

Dorothy Grafly became an art critic and author. Her 1929 biography of her father, The Sculptor's Clay: Charles Grafly (1862–1929), was reissued by Wichita State University in 1996.

Selected works

Aeneas and Anchises (1893), Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, Delaware. The sculpture depicts Aeneas carrying his aged father, Anchises, out of the burning city of Troy.
The Vulture of War (1895–99), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Symbol of Life (1897), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The young man leans on a scythe; the young woman holds an orb from which grows a stalk of wheat.
From Generation to Generation (1897–98), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A youth and an old man walking side by side past a winged zodiac clock.
Smith Memorial Arch, West Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Bust of Admiral David Dixon Porter (1898–1901)
Bust of John B. Gest (1901)
General John F. Reynolds (1901–02) A nude, helmeted goddess stands with a snake draped over her shoulders, looking into a hand mirror.
Vérité (Truth) (1904), Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri.
Mother and Child (1905, cast in bronze 1989), Charles Grafly Sculpture Garden, Wichita State University.
Maidenhood (1906), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. An anatomical study, it was part of Grafly's exhibit at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition.
Allegorical figure of France (1904–07)
Ideal Head of a Woman (1908), Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University.
The Oarsman (1910), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Modeled at Grafly's Lanesville studio, probably as an anatomical study, it was part of his exhibit at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition.
James Buchanan (1924–28), Buchanan Park, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Major General George Gordon Meade Memorial (1927), E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse, Washington, D.C. Another cast is at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Head of Chivalry (1927), Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Major General Galusha Pennypacker Memorial (1921–34), Logan Circle, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1890. Exhibited at PAFA in 1891, and purchased by the Temple Fund.
My Mother – Bust of Elizabeth Grafly (1892, cast in bronze 1990), Charles Grafly Sculpture Garden, Wichita State University.
Icarus (1894, cast in bronze 1973), Charles Grafly Sculpture Garden, Wichita State University.
Henry O. Tanner (1896), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
Hugh H. Breckenridge (1898), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Joseph R. DeCamp (1902), Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Edward Hornor Coates (1903), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
W. Elmer Schofield (1905), National Academy of Design, New York City.
The Surgeon—Portrait of Joseph Price (1906), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Emily Clayton Bishop (1907), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Edward W. Redfield (1909), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
William M. Paxton (1909), Museum of Fine Arts Boston.
The Entomologist—Portrait of Henry L. Viereck (1909), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Henry Charles Lea (1910), Library Company of Philadelphia.
Thomas P. Anshutz (1912), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Awarded PAFA's first Widener Gold Medal, in 1913.
Frank Duveneck (1915), National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Paul Wayland Bartlett (1916), National Academy of Design, New York City.
Childe Hassam (1918), Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Morris Gray (1923), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Hall of Fame for Great Americans, Bronx, New York City

James Buchanan Eads (1924)
Jonathan Edwards (1926)
David Glasgow Farragut (1927)
John Paul Jones (1928)

File:Daedalus p.349.jpg|Daedalus (1890), PAFA

File:Bust of My Mother p.351.jpg|Portrait of My Mother (1892)

File:Mrs.Grafly p.352.jpg|Portrait of Mrs. Grafly (1895)

File:Henry O. Tanner MET 49.54.jpg|Henry O. Tanner (1896), Metropolitan Museum of Art

File:Charles Grafly, Sculptor, Trask, 1910 DJVU pg 4.jpg|Joseph R. DeCamp (1902), Philadelphia Museum of Art

File:Portrait bust of Edward Hornor Coates by Charles Grafly (1903).jpg|Edward Hornor Coates (1903), PAFA

File:Charles Grafly - Buste de W Elmer Schofield.jpg|W. Elmer Schofield (1905), National Academy of Design

File:Grafly Dr. Joseph Price PPIE Catalogue Deluxe vol.1 p.61.jpg|Dr. Joseph Price (1906), PAFA

File:Portrait of Frank Duveneck by Charles Grafly, Cincinnati Art Museum.jpg|Frank Duveneck (1915), Cincinnati Art Museum

File:The Sculptor Paul Wayland Bartlett, by Charles Grafly.jpg|Paul Wayland Bartlett (1916), National Academy of Design

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