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Emma Cadwalader-Guild

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American sculptor and painter (1843–1911)
Emma Cadwalader-Guild
BornAugust 27, 1843
Zanesville, Ohio
Diedc. 1911
Other namesEmma Cadwalader-Guild
OccupationArtist
Known forPortrait busts of significant figures
SpouseEdward Chipman Guild (Oct. 8, 1861-Nov. 6, 1899)

Emma Marie Cadwalader-Guild, also spelled Cadwallader-Guild (August 27, 1843 – c. 1911) was an American sculptor and painter, notable for her portrait busts of figures such as President William McKinley, Andrew Carnegie, and George Frederick Watts, as well other sculptures. She worked primarily in marble and bronze, and her works were exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, the 1894 Paris Salon, the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, and the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, where she won a bronze medal. Cadwalader-Guild spent much of her career abroad and was particularly well known in England and Germany.

Life and career

Cadwalader-Guild was born in Zanesville, Ohio in 1843. Her father, a doctor, was a member of the English Cadwallader family, and her name was spelled both Cadwalader and Cadwallader during her lifetime. Her mother painted with oils and watercolors, and Cadwalader-Guild herself showed an early interest in art. On October 8, 1861, she married Reverend Edward Chipman Guild of the Unitarian church. The pair had two children, Eliza and Rose.

After her marriage, Cadwalader-Guild and her husband lived in Waltham, Massachusetts, near Boston, where she spent time with local artists in their studios and attended William Rimmer's lectures on anatomy. Otherwise she had little formal training and was largely self-taught. She is said to have completed a lifesize David in clay in 1875, and her first recorded exhibition was in 1876 at the Women's Pavilion of the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition.

Free (1876)
(copy by Otto Braun, c. 1911)

One of Cadwalader-Guild's earliest works was a statue of an emancipated slave, created in 1876 and entitled Free. According to a frequently repeated story, which first appeared in a profile of the artist in 1904, the inspiration for the work came from her encounter with a dejected African-American man at the Boston market. After spending weeks creating a clay model of the man, she arranged for it to be cast in bronze in Italy. Although the original bronze has been lost, the composition of the sculpture is known from a copy in wood carved by German sculptor Otto Braun. In Braun's copy, the half-nude man leans against a tree trunk with his head down; his hands, held behind his back, are unbound, but from the front his posture suggests that he is still in chains. The ambivalence of the figure has been interpreted as a reflection of the lasting psychological effects of slavery and the ambiguous position of emancipated slaves in the Reconstruction era.

Bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln

Portraiture was her primary subject matter; however, Cadwalader-Guild did create other forms. Her historical subjects include an Endymion in marble and a corresponding bronze statuette, a marble bust of Lotos/Lotus, a bust of the Head of St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, a marble figure of Electron/Electro/Elektron, and Psyche. Her historical subjects were praised for their originality and craftsmanship. She was also known for working without models.

Though her primary work was sculpture, she also painted, though mostly without patronage. Her focus was on still lives and landscapes. She also painted a series of oil sketches. Cadwalader-Guild often had showings of her work in her studio.

Once Free was completed, Cadwalader-Guild moved abroad in the mid-1880s, exhibiting and working in multiple cities. She placed Free in her London studio, where it was well-received by critics. She traveled and study the masters of art and opened studios in cities with strong art communities, including London, Berlin, Italy, and Frankfurt, to increase the profitability of her travels. While in Europe, she produced pieces that were well-received and brought her recognition including marble and bronze busts of British Prime Minister William Gladstone, who contacted her for in-person sittings, something he had not done with any other sculptor.

She returned to the United States at an unknown date to make a bust of President McKinley at the encouragement of then-United States Ambassador Andrew White. Cadwalader-Guild had long wanted to create a study of her fellow Ohioan. However, McKinley did not arrive to the scheduled sittings in the summer due to the campaign of 1900. She returned to Berlin and came back to the United States the following summer to meet McKinley in Canton, Ohio where he was staying. Again McKinley was too busy to pose for sittings but promised to sit for her when he returned to Washington D.C. in October. However, McKinley was assassinated in September 1901 and Cadwalader-Guild made the bust from photographs. Congress purchased the bust for $2,000. It was placed in the President's Room in the Capitol and moved to the Senate Marble Room in 2000.

Bronze bust of G. F. Watts

From 1885 to 1888 her primary address was in London. The Royal Academy in London listed her 1888 address as in Frankfurt and in 1891, Hamburg, and in 1893, Berlin. The 1894 Paris Salon listed a London address. By 1897 she had relocated the majority of her work to Berlin where her work consisted mostly of portraiture of nobility. At the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition she is listed as still working in Berlin. Prior to December 1905 Cadwalader-Guild purportedly spent several years in England. During this time she made her busts of Gladstone and other notable figures including royalty. Another report attests that prior to March 1905 Cadwalader-Guild spent several years in Berlin before returning to America to work in the Bryant Park Building. At that time she was working on the bust of an unknown but prominent New York resident.

Little is known of Cadwalader-Guild's death but that it occurred around 1911, and in the United States.

Notable work and exhibitions

Bronze and marble bust of Princess Helene of Saxe-Altenburg

Cadwalader-Guild exhibited at the Royal Academy multiple times throughout her career. She exhibited her bronze statuette Free in 1885; a still life painting in 1886; and two busts in 1887, one of the inventor Peter Brotherhood, and the other of British politician Frederick Seager Hunt. At the Royal Academy in 1888 she had a bronze portrait medallion and a bust of the Rev. Canon Wilberforce exhibited, in 1891 a bronze bust of an Indian rider, in 1893 her busts of the artist George Frederick Watts, Esq. R.A. and of Henry Shore, Esq., and in 1898 her bronze statuette Endymion.

Cadwalader-Guild also exhibited at the Glaspalast in Munich starting in 1883, the Paris Salon, the Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts, and at least twice at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, once with her bronze Endymion in 1891 and again in 1893 with her busts of Henry Thode, Esq. and G. F. Watts. At the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Cadwalader-Guild had five pieces exhibited; her bust of G. F. Watts, her marble Endymion, her bust of Joseph Joachim, her bust of Lincoln, and her sculpture of Electron. At the Paris Salon two pieces were exhibited in 1894, Free and a plaster bust called Tramonto.

Lotus (marble, 1904)

List of known notable subjects

Endymion (marble, 1886)

Other known works

Sculpture

  • Free, 1876, bronze statuette, exhibited at the Glaspalast in 1883, the Royal Academy in 1885, and the Paris Salon in 1894; location currently unknown. A copy in basswood by German artist Otto Braun is currently at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
  • Endymion, 1886, marble statue, exhibited at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition; location currently unknown
  • Endymion, 1896, bronze statuette, 33.8 centimeters, exhibited at Royal Academy in 1898, sold at auction in February 2018
  • Lotos/Lotus, 1904, marble bust, location currently unknown
  • Head of St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, 1905, mixed media of marble and bronze, location currently unknown
  • Tramonto, a plaster bust, exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1894, location currently unknown
  • Electron/Elektron/Electro, 1895, a bronze and a marble statue, the bronze statue given to the German postmaster general Heinrich von Stephan by the Society of the Electrical and Electrochemical Industry of Frankfurt and placed at the Imperial Postal Museum in Berlin, today Museum für Kommunikation Berlin, second exhibited at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, location of the bronze Elektron at the Museum für Kommunikation Frankfurt
  • David, 1875, clay sculpture
  • Psyche
  • Ruberta
  • Frond, 1894, alabaster bust
  • Bronze portrait medallion, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1888
  • Indian Rider, bronze bust, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1891

Painting

  • Still life, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1886
  • A series of oil sketches of unknown subjects

Reception

The reception to Cadwalader-Guild's work was positive. Her sculpture Lotos was lauded in the German Times as, "This psychic masterpiece stamps Mrs. Guild unequivocally as an artist of the very first rank."

Cadwalader-Guild's bust of Joseph Joachim was also complimented by the German Times, saying, " by far the best and most significant work accomplished by any of the small army of sculptors who have been moved to do the violin-patriarch's characteristic head."

Her marble study of Wilhelmina of the Netherlands so impressed Empress Augusta Victoria that when she saw it on public display, she ordered it to be taken to the palace. Princess Sophia of Saxe-Weimar, Wilhelmina's aunt, had Cadwalader-Guild make a duplicate as a coronation gift for Wilhelmina.

United States politician John Hay described her bust of President McKinley as, "The power of the head is remarkable. It is a great expression of the personality of the man."

In an article about Cadwalader-Guild the Boston Evening Transcript wrote, "...the work of Mrs. Guild shows unmistakable talent and such as fresh, free spirit of originality that one can almost accept the alleged dictum of Berlin that Mrs. Guild 'is the greatest genius in sculpture that America has ever had.'"

Her bronze statuette Endymion was complimented in the 1896 Studio International with, "...since the Italian bronzes of the Quattrocento no finer work of the kind has been seen than this." Similarly, upon the completion of her marble Endymion a complimentary piece was written in The International Studio which focused on the originality, pose, and composition of the sculpture.

An author for The International Studio wrote about the skill of her paintings in the journal's November 1897 to February 1898 volume, saying, "Mrs. Guild has a strong predilection for painting...which she does with no small degree of success, as her free and vigorous landscape studies abundantly testify...This pronounced feeling of hers for colour explains to me how in... her sculpture she employs means which really overstep the bounds of plastic art."

References

  1. ^ Falk, Peter. Who Was Who In American Art 1564-1975: Vol 1: A-F. Sound View Press.
  2. ^ Haverstock, Mary Sayre (2000). Artists in Ohio, 1787-1900: A Biographical Dictionary. The Kent State University Press.
  3. ^ Kloss, William; Skvarla, Diane K. (2002). "William McKinley". In McGoldrick, Jane R. (ed.). United States Senate: Catalogue of Fine Art (PDF). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 278–279. Reproduced in "William McKinley". www.senate.gov. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
  4. ^ Michigan State Library (1924). Biographical Sketches of American Artists. Michigan State Library. pp. 61–62.
  5. ^ "Mrs Emma Marie Cadwallader-Guild - Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951". sculpture.gla.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-11-23.
  6. ^ Baker, Abby G. (February 1904). "An American Woman Sculptor". Pearson's Magazine. 11 (2): 171–174.
  7. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography: Volume XIX. James T. White & Company. 1926. p. 329.
  8. ^ "IN THE WORLD OF ART: EXHIBITIONS PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE, WITH GENERAL NEWS". The New York Times. March 22, 1896.
  9. ^ Ulrich Thieme, Felix Becker (1922). Allgemeines Lexikon Der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike Bis Zur Gegenart: Fünfzehnter Band Gresse - Hanselmann.
  10. ^ Poole, Maurita N. (2023). "From Emancipation to Transcendance: Meditations on Freedom in American Art". In Adler, Maggie; Poole, Maurita (eds.). Emancipation: The Unfinished Project of Liberation. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 45–47.
  11. ^ "Black History Month: Emma Cadwalader Guild's sculpture "Free" | Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art". Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. 2017-02-15. Retrieved 2018-11-23.
  12. ^ "Mrs. Cadwalader Guild's Recent Sculpture". The International Studio. 27: xliv–xlvi. 1905–1906.
  13. "Mrs. Cadwallader Guild: Endymion, Bronze ca. 1900 on LiveAuctioneers". LiveAuctioneers. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  14. ^ "Studio-Talk". The International Studio. 3: 54–56. 1897–1898.
  15. ^ Clement, Clara Erskine (1974). Women in the Fine Arts: from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D.. New York: Hacker Art Books. pp. 153–154. ISBN 978-0-87817-150-7.
  16. ^ Graves, F.S.A., Algernon (1905). The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  17. ^ "Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts. [no.]118 (1886)". HathiTrust. Retrieved 2018-11-23.
  18. ^ "American Art News, Vol. 4, no. 10". American Art News. 4 (10): 1–8. 1905. JSTOR 25590154.
  19. ^ "American Art News, Vol. 3, no. 70". American Art News. 3 (70): 1–8. 1905. JSTOR 25590107.
  20. ^ "Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts. [no.]120 (1888)". HathiTrust. Retrieved 2018-11-23.
  21. ^ Johnson, J. (1980). The Dictionary of British Artists 1880-1940. Baron Publishing.
  22. ^ "Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts. [no.]123 (1891)". HathiTrust. Retrieved 2018-11-23.
  23. ^ "Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts. [no.]124-125 (1892-1893)". HathiTrust. Retrieved 2018-11-23.
  24. ^ Fink, Lois (1990). American Art at the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons. Cambridge University Press.
  25. ^ Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904 : Saint Louis, Mo ) (1904). Official catalogue of exhibitors. Universal exposition. St. Louis, U.S.A. 1904. : Division of exhibits. Department A. Education [to H. Agriculture; J. Horticulture to P. Physical Culture; R. Livestock.]. Boston Public Library. St. Louis : For the Committee on press and publicity by the official catalogue company inc.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  26. ^ "American Art News, Vol. 4, no. 8". American Art News. 4 (8): 1–8. 1905. JSTOR 25590150.
  27. Petteys, Chris. Dictionary of Women Artists: an international dictionary of women artists born before 1900. Boston, Massachusetts: G.K. Hall & Co.
  28. ^ "Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts. v. 119 (1887)". HathiTrust. Retrieved 2018-11-23.
  29. "Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts. [no.]130-131 (1898-1899)". HathiTrust. Retrieved 2018-11-23.
  30. ^ "Digitale Bibliothek - Münchener Digitalisierungszentrum". daten.digitale-sammlungen.de (in German). Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  31. "Digitale Bibliothek - Münchener Digitalisierungszentrum". daten.digitale-sammlungen.de. Retrieved 2018-12-10.
  32. "An extremely fine late Victorian bronze bust depicting Peter Brotherhood dated 1887 by Emma Cadwa". www.the-saleroom.com. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  33. ^ "Studio-Talk". The Studio. 7: 52–53. 1896.
  34. "Mrs. Cadwallader Guild: Endymion, Bronze ca. 1900 on LiveAuctioneers". LiveAuctioneers. Retrieved 2018-12-13.

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