Francis Edwin Elwell was an American sculptor. From 1903 to 1905, he served as curator of ancient and modern sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
Background
Francis Edwin Elwell, son of John Wesley and Clara (Farrar) Elwell, was born at Concord, Massachusetts, and when growing up, had the cultural advantage of contact with many of the fine minds of that town. Left an orphan at four years, he was placed in the care of his grandfather, Elisha Farrar, the village blacksmith, a poor man but a “great character” and a friend of Thoreau. The boy often accompanied these two men in their Sunday morning rambles. He revered Emerson ; he was befriended by the Alcotts. Poverty was his lot. At eight years of age he rose early to do the chores for neighboring farmers, in order to help pay for his clothes.
Education
Study abroad became his immediate ambition Aided by loans from Louisa Alcott and trom his fellow townsman, the young sculptor Hamel C. French, whose advice and experience were for years of great value to him, he went to Paris in 1878, and entered the Beaux-Arts, later becoming a private pupil of Falguière.
Career
The boy often accompanied these two men in their Sunday morning rambles.
He revered Emerson ; he was befriended by the Alcotts.
Poverty was his lot.
At eight years of age he rose early to do the chores for neighboring farmers, in or- der to help pay for his clothes.
Members of the Elwell family served in the Mexican War, and in the Civil War.
The sculptor himself belonged for years to the Massachusetts militia; during the Spanish-American War he joined the Engineer Corps as volunteer but was not actively engaged.
When he was scarcely through high school, his grandfather died.
“Whatever executive f ”ll, ‘>' il, have-” sa'd Elwell, “I owe to Mr. Shurt- teif.
Even after deciding to become a sculptor the young man gave much time to the perfecting of surgical instruments, work which trained both eye and hand, and enabled him to note operations in hospitals.
Taking a studio in Boston he showed, among various early attempts, a bust of the painter Gaugengigl, which attracted much attention on account of the lifelike effect of the eyes.
In 1881 he exhibited in the Paris Salon a portrait of thé Belgian sculptor, Hippolyte Ie Roy, and in 1883, the realistic bronze figure, “Aqua Viva, ” a work shown also in Brussels and in London, and now owned by the Metropolitan Museum, New York In the following year, he broadened his studies by a period at the Royal School of Arts, Ghent, Belgium, there receiving a silver medal for his progress in architecture.
For a time Elwell taught in the National Academy School, and in t e Art Students’ League.
His first commission was for a monument to be placed in Edam, Holland, to commemorate F. H. Pont.
He selected an imaginative rather than a realistic treatment, taking as his theme, “The Death of Strength. ”
The group, an angel with a branch of laurel standing over a prostrate lion, is said to be the first ever modeled in the United States to be set up abroad.
His next work of importance was tne immensely popular “Dickens and Little Nell ” given a place of honor at the Columbian Expos’i- „°n °L*°93> and now in Clarence H. Clark Park wu P!Vladelphia- The ipoup is heroic in size’ but hardly monumental in conception; it charms the public through its sympathetic and picturesque qualities.
From the knees down, the figure is treated in the hieratic Egyptian manner; above, it gradually emerges into a vivid life finding ultimate expression in the uplifted arms and animated countenancea difficult sculptural problem skilfully solved.
The striking variety of gifts shown in these and other works denote -Iwell s versatility.
His equestrian group of 1 l ^ ^COtt Hancock at Gettysburg, Pa. (1896), has the necessary monumental qualities while his “Orchid Dancer” of two years later is all lightness and elegance.
The “New Life ” a large memorial relief of a draped female figure (placed m the cemetery at Lowell, Mass. , in i«99), shows the sculptor in a deeply religious even mystical mood.
Again, his novel and imposing decorative fountain for the Pan-American Exposition with its crowning figures of Kronos and Ceres, ” designed somewhat in the Egyptian spirit, revealed his unfettered imagination, and won for him the silver medal (1901) One was conscious, ” wrote Taft (post, p. 417)' .
of a stron£ artistic personality behind prodigious apparitions. ”
Elwell himself placed a high value on the “artistic personality” and artistic integrity, stressing them in his writings and lectures on art.
In 1903, he became curator of statuary in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
After two years he returned to his studio-work in Weehawken, giving himself entirely to creative endeavor.
His Dispatch Rider of the Revolution, ” erected in 1907 at Orange, N. J. , is a virile bronze of heroic size, representing a booted and spurred horseman, who has evidently just dismounted; his cloak is still outspread, and gives a good silhouette.
The Fogg Museum at Harvard University has the bronze statuette “Kronos, ” presented by the sculptor’s son, Bruce Elwell.
In his art, he was a lover of nature, a thinker, a worker, a fighter.
Whatever he did was done thoroughly, and in a workmanlike way.
Politics
His greatgrandfather Farrar fought at Concord Bridge his great-uncie Col. Timothy Bruce at Bunker Hill.
Together with the “Diana and the Lion, now m the Art Institute, Chicago, this work won for the sculptor a gold medal Elwell had long felt a deep love for Egyptian art, and he labored for years on his seated statue oi Egypt Awaking, ” shown in the Salon of 1806 and promptly bought by a French gentleman, m’ Gabriel Goupillat.
Views
Elwell himself placed a high value on the “artistic personality” and artistic integrity, stressing them in his writings and lectures on art.
Personality
He was admirably energetic and resourceful in this office though nervous instability occasionally obscured his judgment and he was at times overearnest, even quarrelsome. In his art, he was a lover of nature, a thinker, a worker, a fighter.
Whatever he did was done thoroughly, and in a workmanlike way.
Connections
After many years, Elwell’s first marriage was ended by a divorce, and he was married again, to Annie Marion Benjamin.
Father:
John Wesley
Mother:
Clara (Farrar) Elwell
Wife:
Annie Marion Benjamin
Grandfather:
Elisha Farrar
aunt:
Louisa Brooks
Friend:
Louisa Alcott
Louisa Alcott continued to prove herself a true friend; May Alcott, noting the boy s talent and love of beauty, had already taught him something of line drawing and later gave him hints as to the modeling of form.
