Lorado Taft: sculptor

              1929

Figure

LORADO TAFT Sculptor

Mr. Taft at work in his studio


Studio Photo by Courtesy of Clara Sipprell



LORADO TAFT America's Foremost Sculptor
LORADO TAFT, one of the great sculptors of the day, whose lectures have always made for individual and community advancement, has been one of the leading American platform stars for many years.  He is an easy and fluent speaker, full of spontaneity, alive with humor, interesting his audience as he carries them through an evening of the highest educational value.

Mr. Taft was born at Elmwood, Ill., in 1860.  He is a graduate of the University of Illinois, where his father was professor of geology.  In 1880, after his graduation from the University, Mr. Taft went to Paris where he studied for five years in the Ecole des Beaux Arts.  Since 1885 he has been a resident of Chicago, with occasional trips to Europe.

As instructor in modeling and later as lecturer he has been connected with the Art Institute of Chicago for 35 years.  At the University of Chicago he holds the title of Professorial Lecturer on the History of Art and is a non-resident professor of art at the University of Illinois.  Mr. Taft is a member of the National Academy of Design, of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects and is one of the Board of Art Advisors for the State of Illinois.  He was a member of National Commission of Fine Arts, Washington, D. C., 1924-1928.  He received a silver medal at the Buffalo Exposition in 1901 and a gold medal at the Exposition at St. Louis in 1904.

Mr. Taft's first ideal work of importance was at the Columbian Exposition, where he undertook the decoration of the Horticultural Building.  His two groups The Sleep of the Flowers and The Awakening of the Flowers on either side of the main entrance brought recognition and, later commissions.  Among his best known professional works are The Solitude of the Soul, at the Art Institute of Chicago; The Blind, an ideal group inspired by Maeterlink's drama of the same name; the sculpture of the Columbus Memorial Fountain at Washington, D. C.; The Fountain of the Great Lakes, Grant Park, Chicago; the Washington Monument at Seattle, Washington; Black Hawk and Ogle County Soldiers' Memorial, at Oregon, Illinois; the Thatcher Memorial Fountain at Denver, Colorado; and—recently erected—the vast Fountain of Time, on the Midway Plaisance, Chicago.

Mr. Taft published in 1904 a History of American Sculpture and in 1921 six lectures entitled Modern Tendencies in Sculpture. He has delivered several thousand addresses, the Processes of Sculpture alone having a record of some twelve hundred evenings.

Mr. Taft's Chicago studio is situated on the Midway, in the immediate vicinity of the University of Chicago, between Washington and Jackson parks.  The Midway Studios combine a double range of buildings erected around a central court and provide quarters for the artist himself, for some seven or eight associated sculptors and for many assistants—some twenty persons in all.  Here can be seen in operation most of the processes connected with the art of sculpture.

Mr. Taft's summer residence and studio are on the Rock River, near Oregon, Illinois, where for years he has been the head of an artists' camp, and where he has erected his colossal statue of Black Hawk in commemoration of the former inhabitants of the beautiful Rock River Valley.



The Lorado Taft Lectures on Sculptural Art
(Beautifully Illustrated with Stereopticon Slides)

1.
MY DREAM MUSEUM (His Latest.)
2.
ONE HUNDRED MASTERPIECES OF SCULPTURE—Greek to Modern.
3.
SCULPTURE OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE.
4.
MODERN FRENCH SCULPTURE — Nineteenth Century to Present.
5.
AMERICAN SCULPTURE AND SCULPTORS.
6.
BEAUTY IN AMERICAN LIFE—Unillustrated.



Printed in U. S. A.

REDPATH