Sculptor Cyrus Dallin ~ Connections to Mt. Pleasant

 
And Why Do We Share This With You?

 Cyrus Dallin was a nephew of our own Cyrus Wheelock and spent time here in Mt. Pleasant.  He is found on page  305 of the Mt. Pleasant History:

  "The men and women who took part in our theatricals during the early years of our dramatic efforts to render public service. The real leader and organizing genius was the Englishman, John Wallis, who had con­siderable ability and did much towards securing the formation of an efficient troop. Assisting him were the following gentle­men, according to my recollection: J. A. F. Beaumann, Alma Bennett, R. N. Bennett, W. W. Brandon, John Carter, Thomas Fuller, Henry Larter, Christopher Johnson, Gus Johnson, H. P. Jensen, Albert Candland, Thomas Gledhill, John Dallin, Cyrus Dallin, Orson Lee, William McArthur, William Morrison, James Reynolds, Bent Rolphson, Alof Rosenlof, Allen Rowe, William Rowe, Conderset Rowe, Joseph Gribble, John H. Seeley, Hans Han­sen, James Wishaw, Richard Westwood, and Cap Clem."

Biography courtesy Springville Museum of Art.

Cyrus Dallin was born in Springville, Utah, in 1861. His talent for modeling with clay was discovered while he was young. Friends later put money together and sent him to Boston in 1880 to train with the sculptor Truman A. Bartlett. He traveled to Paris in 1887 and studied at the Academie Julian. Successful in his studies in Paris, he was accepted into the Paris Salon where he won an honorable mention.

By 1900, Dallin was a teacher at the Massachusetts State Normal Art School, and the recipient of a contract for a monumental statue of Paul Revere to be placed in downtown Boston. He began his work on Paul Revere in 1883. A first through fifth model had been created during years of frustration, until the commission approved his final version in 1899. It took another 40 years to get the monument erected on the Paul Revere Mall near Old North Church in 1940. The Paul Revere statue, as well as those of Jane Dallin (1904), Scout (1910), and Appeal to the Great Spirit (life size at the Museum of Fine arts, Boston, 1912), are typical Dallin works of generalized dignity.

On a 1903 trip to his home town, Cyrus Dallin was invited to make an inspirational speech to the town's students; he agreed, and during the lecture, became sufficiently moved by the example his own success could provide that he offered to donate the plaster model for this fifth Paul Revere to the Springville schools.

Dallin came back to Utah every now and then, as he did for the unveiling of his Moroni atop the Salt Lake Temple in 1892-93. However, this former Utahn remained in the East, where he pursued a rather happy artist's life, riding on the crest of the popular vogue. He won a gold medal at the 1904 St. Louis Exposition for Sioux Chief, and at about the same time designed the model for a large Revolutionary War Soldiers and Sailors Monument , which won first prize in a 1906 competition.

Another major Dallin work that he had started in the late teens and completed in 1921, is Massasoit, which overlooks Plymouth Bay in Massachusetts. Another casting of the figure stands in front of the Utah State Capitol Building.

Dallin produced most of his work in the East, and in 1923 he received a master's degree from Tufts College, and in 1936 Boston University bestowed an honorary doctorate upon the "Old American Master." In 1943, at the age of 82, the artist died at his home in Arlington Heights, Massachusetts. The sculptor is often remembered for the words he spoke on his final trip west in 1942, "I have received two college degrees . . . besides medals galore, but my greatest honor of all is that I came from Utah."

Cyrus Dallin was born in Springville, Utah in 1861. Two circumstances of his early life in the western wilderness profoundly influenced him - the proximity of the little log cabin where he was born to the lofty Wasatch Mountains, and his familiarity with the Indians in their native haunts. The first awakened and fostered in him a love for sublimity of form; and the second furnished him with an unfailing source of material for his creative work.

A the age of eighteen, Dallin went to Boston to begin his art studies. In 1888, he went to Paris, where he remained until 1890, studying at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and at Academie Julien under Henri Chapu. He returned to America in 1890 and moved to Massachusetts.

Cryus Dallin not only created statues of Native Americans, but he was also well know for his portrait statues. Among these are: Sir Isaac Newton for the Congressional Library in Washington D.C., General Hancock in Gettysburg, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston. The principal monuments executed by Dallin are the Pioneer Monument in Salt Lake City, and the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Syracuse, New York.

Cryus Dallin has received many medals and honors both in America and in Europe. Among his many awards are a gold medal from the American Art Association of New York in 1888, a first class medal in 1893 from the Chicago Exposition, and a gold medal in 1904 at the St. Louis Exposition. In 1909 he received a gold medal from the Paris Salon, an honor which had then been conferred on only six American sculptors.

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The following is courtesy of The Cyrus E. Dallin Art Museum

 plaster, 1899

P.P. Caproni and Brothers cast
gift of students and parents of the Locke School

On his famous ride in 1775, Paul Revere rode past the future home of the Cyrus E. Dallin Museum, to be built some 50 years later. A youthful Dallin won the competition for Boston’s Paul Revere Monument in 1882 at the age of 21. Nevertheless, his quest to complete the commission was a 58-year test of perseverance and resolve. Dallin created seven different versions (shown in photos in the gallery) before it was finally installed in bronze at Old North Church in 1940. This fifth version was reproduced in plaster and widely marketed by the Caproni Brothers.  It became an American sculptural icon in the early 20th century, so much so that the Marx Brothers parodied it in their movie, Duck Soup.

Paul Revere’s Ride

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807 - 1882 Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five: Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year. He said to his friend, “If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night, Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,-- One if by land, and two if by sea; And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm, For the country-folk to be up and to arm.” Then he said “Good night!” and with muffled oar Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, Just as the moon rose over the bay, Where swinging wide at her moorings lay The Somerset, British man-of-war: A phantom ship, with each mast and spar Across the moon, like a prison-bar, And a huge black hulk, that was magnified By its own reflection in the tide. Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street Wanders and watches with eager ears, Till in the silence around him he hears The muster of men at the barrack door, The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet, And the measured tread of the grenadiers Marching down to their boats on the shore. Then he climbed to the tower of the church, Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, To the belfry-chamber overhead, And startled the pigeons from their perch On the sombre rafters, that round him made Masses and moving shapes of shade,-- By the trembling ladder, steep and tall, To the highest window in the wall, Where he paused to listen and look down A moment on the roofs of the town, And the moonlight flowing over all. Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead, In their night-encampment on the hill, Wrapped in silence so deep and still That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread, The watchful night-wind, as it went Creeping along from tent to tent, And seeming to whisper, “All is well!” A moment only he feels the spell Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread Of the lonely belfry and the dead; For suddenly all his thoughts are bent On a shadowy something far away, Where the river widens to meet the bay, -- A line of black, that bends and floats On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats. Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride, On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere. Now he patted his horse’s side, Now gazed on the landscape far and near, Then impetuous stamped the earth, And turned and tightened his saddle-girth; But mostly he watched with eager search The belfry-tower of the old North Church, As it rose above the graves on the hill, Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height, A glimmer, and then a gleam of light! He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight A second lamp in the belfry burns! A hurry of hoofs in a village-street, A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet: That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light, The fate of a nation was riding that night; And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight, Kindled the land into flame with its heat. He has left the village and mounted the steep, And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep, Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides; And under the alders, that skirt its edge, Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge, Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides. It was twelve by the village clock When he crossed the bridge into Medford town. He heard the crowing of the cock, And the barking of the farmer’s dog, And felt the damp of the river-fog, That rises when the sun goes down. It was one by the village clock, When he galloped into Lexington. He saw the gilded weathercock Swim in the moonlight as he passed, And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, Gaze at him with a spectral glare, As if they already stood aghast At the bloody work they would look upon. It was two by the village clock, When be came to the bridge in Concord town. He heard the bleating of the flock, And the twitter of birds among the trees, And felt the breath of the morning breeze Blowing over the meadows brown. And one was safe and asleep in his bed Who at the bridge would be first to fall, Who that day would be lying dead, Pierced by a British musket-ball. You know the rest. In the books you have read, How the British Regulars fired and fled,-- How the farmers gave them ball for ball, From behind each fence and farmyard-wall, Chasing the red-coats down the lane, Then crossing the fields to emerge again Under the trees at the turn of the road, And only pausing to fire and load. So through the night rode Paul Revere; And so through the night went his cry of alarm To every Middlesex village and farm,-- A cry of defiance, and not of fear, A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, And a word that shall echo forevermore! For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, Through all our history, to the last, In the hour of darkness and peril and need, The people will waken and listen to hear The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, And the midnight message of Paul Revere.