At the turn of the century Frederick William MacMonnies was considered to be one of the country’s three leading sculptors. The collapse of his father’s business made it necessary for him to seek employment at the age of twelve. By his seventeenth birthday he had become an apprentice in the studio of AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS; he took evening classes in drawing at the Cooper Union and later at the National Academy of Design. In time, Saint-Gaudens recognized his abilities and promoted him to the position of assistant. In September 1884 MacMonnies left for Paris, where he began the study of drawing at the Académie Colarossi and drew from the antique at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. When cholera broke out in Paris, MacMonnies went to Munich, where for five months he received instruction in drawing and sculpture at the Royal Academy of the Fine Arts. In the spring of 1885 he resumed his studies at Colarossi’s but in the summer returned to New York at Saint-Gaudens’s request to again assist him in his studio.
Between 1886 and 1888 he studied sculpture with Jean-Alexandre-Joseph Falguière (1831-1900) at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, twice winning the Prix d’Atelier, and with Marius-Jean-Antonin Mercié (1845-1916) in private classes. He then opened his own atelier in Paris. MacMonnies’s sculptures won an honorable mention at the Salon of 1889 and a gold medal of the second class at the Salon of 1891, an unprecedented honor for an American sculptor. His large Barge of State (Triumph of Columbia), a decoration for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 (destroyed), established his reputation. He received numerous public commissions. In 1898 he moved to Giverny, where numerous painters had gathered around Claude Monet. In 1901 he announced that he was giving up sculpture and turned to painting, at which he achieved a certain success. However, he continued to execute public sculpture commissions. In 1915 he moved back to New York.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Avalon, Calif., Mrs. Henry VenderVelde Collection, Frederick MacMonnies Papers (on microfilm, Archiv. Am. Art) § Royal Cortissoz, "An American Sculptor: Frederick MacMonnies," Studio 6 (October 1895): 17-26 § French Strother, "Frederick MacMonnies, Sculptor," World’s Work 11 (December 1905): 6965-81 § Taft 1930, pp. 332-55, 609, 615, with bibliography § Paula M. Kozol, "Frederick William MacMonnies (1863-1937)," in American Figurative Sculpture in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1986), pp. 293-95, with bibliography.
