George Grey Barnard

Background

George Grey Barnard was born on May 24, 1863 in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, but grew up in Kankakee, Illinois. He was the son of Reverend Joseph Barnard and Martha Grubb, and the grandson and namesake of merchant George Grey Grubb.

Education

George Grey Barnard studied sculpture for twelve years in Paris, completed his first major work, The Struggle of the Two Natures in Man (Metropolitan Museum, New York) in 1894, and returned to the United States two years later.

Career

Barnard created the controversial Lincoln for Cincinnati, groups of statues on the Pennsylvania State capitol, and numerous monuments. He preferred colossal scale and universal subjects, using muscular forms richly molded in the manner of Auguste Rodin.

He taught sculpture at the Art Students' League of New York from 1900 to 1904 and lived in New York from 1910 until his death.

Achievements

• George Grey Barnard is well known for his sculptures Love and Labor: The Unbroken Law and The Burden of Life: The Broken Law that flank the steps of the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg.
  
  His collection of Gothic sculpture and his private museum were purchased in 1925 by the Metropolitan Museum and incorporated in The Cloisters, a museum of medieval art in New York City.

Membership

George Grey Barnard was elected an associate member of the National Academy of Design.

Connections

In 1896, George Grey Barnard married Edna Monroe of Boston. They had two children.

Father:

Joseph Hoke Barnard

Mother:

Martha Grey Grubb Barnard

Spouse:

Edna Monroe

Daughter:

Vivia Grey Barnard

Son:

Martha Grey Grubb Barnard

References

• Errant Bronzes: George Grey Barnard's Statues of Abraham Lincoln (American Arts Series/University of Delaware Press Books)