Alexander Phimister Proctor was an American sculptor with the contemporary reputation as one of the nation's foremost animaliers.
Background
Alexander Phimister Proctor was born in Ontario, Canada, on the 27th of September 1862. The family left Canada in 1866 and moved to Iowa and then to Denver, Colorado, when Alexander was eleven. Growing up on the frontier, Proctor early developed into a skilled woodsman and hunter - interests that remained with him for the rest of his life.
Education
His familiarity with the ways and habits of wild animals was supplemented later by study in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris. He was a pupil at the National Academy of Design and later in the Art Students' League, in New York.
Career
His ability to capture animals in action, garnered in part from his days tracking them, coupled with his interest in all things Native American, opened a niche for Proctor, one that he parlayed into a long, successful career.
As with many of his contemporaries, Proctor’s opportunity to work with some of the greatest sculptors of his day, coupled with the opportunity to create his own large, albeit temporary, pieces presented itself in the guise of the World Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. Several Proctor pieces were paired with Daniel Chester French, then the rising star of the sculpture world.
This collaboration resurfaced in the ensuing years when French called upon Proctor to provide mounts for some of his equestrian monuments. Proctor later was called upon to produce works of various Western themes, mostly figures of native animals, but also a cowboy and Indian that were to form the genesis of his later works, The Bucking Bronco and On the War Trail, both found in Denver.
Proctor moved to Paris. During this period he assisted Augustus Saint Gaudens in the creating of the General Logan Monument, now in Chicago. In 1896 he won the Rinehart Scholarship which allowed him to work and study in Paris for four years under Jean Antoine Injalbert and others. By the time he returned to America in 1899 Proctor was well versed in the Beaux-Arts tradition.
Among his works of sculpture are: "Indian Warrior" (a small bronze), "Panthers, "Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York", "Quadriga, " for United States Pavilion, Paris Exhibition (1900), and groups in the City Park, Denver, and Zoological Park, New York. His pictures of wild animals, mainly in water colours, are also characteristic.
Membership
He became a member of the Society of American Artists (1895), of the National Academy of Design (1904), of the American Water Color Society, and of the Architectural League, New York.