Philip Martiny
Encyclopedia
Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Augustus Saint-Gaudens was the Irish-born American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who most embodied the ideals of the "American Renaissance"...
, with whom he remained five years; a fellow worker in Saint-Gaudens' shop was Frederick MacMonnies. A group photograph taken in Saint-Gaudens's studio about 1883, conserved in the Archives of American Art
Archives of American Art
The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 16 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washington, D.C...
, shows Kenyon Cox
Kenyon Cox
Kenyon Cox was an American painter, illustrator, muralist, writer, and teacher. Cox was an influential and important early instructor at the Art Students League of New York...
, Richard Watson Gilder
Richard Watson Gilder
Richard Watson Gilder was an American poet and editor.-Life and career:Gilder was born at Bordentown, New Jersey. He was the son of Jane Gilder and the Rev. William Henry Gilder, and educated at his father's seminary in Flushing, Queens. There he learned to set type and published the St. Thomas...
, Martiny, Francis David Millet, Saint-Gaudens, Julian Alden Weir and Stanford White
Stanford White
Stanford White was an American architect and partner in the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White, the frontrunner among Beaux-Arts firms. He designed a long series of houses for the rich and the very rich, and various public, institutional, and religious buildings, some of which can be found...
.
He often worked in cooperation with architects in Beaux-Arts architecture. He lived in Bayside, Long Island, and had a sculpture studio in McDougal Alley, a fashionable former mews
Mews
Mews is a primarily British term formerly describing a row of stables, usually with carriage houses below and living quarters above, built around a paved yard or court, or along a street, behind large city houses, such as those of London, during the 17th and 18th centuries. The word may also...
behind Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park is one of the best-known of New York City's 1,900 public parks. At 9.75 acres , it is a landmark in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village, as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity...
. Much of his work is in New York City, though he provided bas-reliefs for the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
and for government buildings in Washington, DC. Martiny was one of the colony who gathered round Saint-Gaudens at Cornish, New Hampshire
Cornish, New Hampshire
Cornish is a town in Sullivan County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 1,640 at the 2010 census. Cornish has three covered bridges. Each August, it is home to the Cornish Fair.-History:...
.
Martiny was one of the large team of decorative sculptors assembled to carry out details for the World's Columbian Exposition
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
, Chicago, 1893, where he settled for a year to carry out the clay models for many somewhat facile decorative allegorical figures, cherubs, caryatid
Caryatid
A caryatid is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head. The Greek term karyatides literally means "maidens of Karyai", an ancient town of Peloponnese...
s and the like. Karl Bitter
Karl Bitter
Karl Theodore Francis Bitter was an Austrian-born United States sculptor best known for his architectural sculpture, memorials and residential work.- Life and career :...
diplomatically characterised Martiny's technique:
"He works with incredible rapidity and apparently with little reflection, but always with such an instinct for the right thing, decoratively speaking, that he rarely fails in his results"
The sculptures, which were carried out in staff, a weather-resistant plaster, were destroyed with the exhibition buildings, but the successful effect they produced led to further similar commissions at the Pan-American Exposition
Pan-American Exposition
The Pan-American Exposition was a World's Fair held in Buffalo, New York, United States, from May 1 through November 2, 1901. The fair occupied of land on the western edge of what is present day Delaware Park, extending from Delaware Ave. to Elmwood Ave and northward to Great Arrow...
in Buffalo, New York (1901) and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition
Louisiana Purchase Exposition
The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the Saint Louis World's Fair, was an international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States in 1904.- Background :...
in St Louis (1904). His growing reputation led to his only medal, an award medal for the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition
Cotton States and International Exposition (1895)
The 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition was held at the current Piedmont Park in Atlanta, Georgia. It is most remembered for the speech given by Booker T. Washington on September 18, 1895....
in Atlanta, Georgia.
Though he was a member of the National Sculpture Society
National Sculpture Society
Founded in 1893, the National Sculpture Society was the first organization of professional sculptors formed in the United States. The purpose of the organization was to promote the welfare of American sculptors, although its founding members included several renowned architects. The founding...
, Philip Martiny was not considered by his contemporaries as a sculptor of the first rank, and the assignation to him by the Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society...
architects given the plum project of completing designs for the New York City Hall of Records
Surrogate's Courthouse
The Surrogate's Courthouse, also known as the Hall of Records, is a Beaux Arts municipal building in lower Manhattan in New York City....
(later the Surrogate's Court) after the architect John R. Thomas's
John Rochester Thomas
John Rochester Thomas was an American architect credited in his time with being the nation's most prolific designer of public and semi-public buildings....
unexpected death in 1901, raised objections that tested the New York Art Commission's authority to accept or reject sculpture by Henry Kirke Bush-Brown
Henry Kirke Bush-Brown
Henry Kirke Bush-Brown was an American sculptor and the adopted nephew of sculptor Henry Kirke Brown. He was raised in Newburgh, New York and attended the National Academy of Design in New York City....
and Martiny for the building. Daniel Chester French
Daniel Chester French
Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor. His best-known work is the sculpture of a seated Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.-Life and career:...
was called in to offer suggestions for improved subjects which Martiny finished in 1907.
In the midst of the project Martiny was interviewed for The New York Times giving the first impression that Martiny operated a commercial sculpture factory "where Art rubs elbows cheerfully, indiscriminately, with Life's less romantic work" but ending with admiration for the sculptor's likeness of the late President McKinley.
After the First World War, Martiny received two commissions for colossal figures commemorating the fallen soldiers: the Chelsea Park Memorial, at 28th Street and 9th Avenue and the memorial in Abingdon Square Park, where 8th Avenue commences.
Martiny married twice and had eight children. A debilitating stroke ended his career, and a second one finished his life. His papers, compiled by Martiny's grandson, Raymond J. Linder, are conserved in the Archives of American Art, The Smithsonian Institution.
Selected works
An extensive list of Martigny's executed commissions, is on-line at National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Research Information. System.- New York City Hall of RecordsSurrogate's CourthouseThe Surrogate's Courthouse, also known as the Hall of Records, is a Beaux Arts municipal building in lower Manhattan in New York City....
, Chambers and Centre Streets. Allegorical figures, under the executant architects Horgan and Slattery. 1901-07. - Louisiana Purchase ExpositionLouisiana Purchase ExpositionThe Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the Saint Louis World's Fair, was an international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States in 1904.- Background :...
(The St Louis World's Fair), 1904. Seven allegorical groups. - William McKinley Memorial, Springfield, Massachusetts.
- Life Publishing Company Building, 19 West 31st Street (now the Herald Square Hotel). Gilded figure of Winged Life in a rococo cartouche over the entrance, flanked by emblems of art and literature.
- St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, New York. Models for the bronze north doors, cast by the Henri-Bonnard Bronze Company.
- Library of CongressLibrary of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
, Jefferson Building. Sculptural programs, in bronze and marble, of the two grand staircases flanking the Great Hall.