Sherry Edmundson Fry
Encyclopedia
Sherry Edmundson Fry was an American sculptor, who also played a prominent role in U.S. Army camouflage
during World War I
.
. After completing high school, he enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago
, where he studied sculpture with Lorado Taft
. He then moved to Paris, where he attended the Académie Julian
and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts
, and worked with Frederick MacMonnies, who had been a student of the famous 19th-century American sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens
.
Judging from books and articles on American sculpture in the decade prior to World War I, Fry was apparently thought to have been a promising young artist, at a time sometimes referred to as “the golden age of sculpture.” Early in his career, he began to receive prestigious awards, including honorable mention at the Paris Salon
in 1906, as well as a medal in 1908; the Prix de Rome
, at the American Academy
in 1908; a silver medal at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915; and a gold medal at the National Academy of Design
in 1917.
, the 19th-century leader of a Native American tribe called the Ioway. Recently restored, it still stands on its pedestal in the town square of Oskaloosa
, which is the governmental seat of Mahaska County, Iowa, in the southeastern section of the state. At the right of the base is the artist’s signature “S.E. Fry, 1907.”
When he accepted the Mahaska commission in 1906, Fry was living in Paris. He returned to Iowa the following summer to make preparatory drawings of Meskwaki
at the nearby Settlement at Tama, Iowa
, and to collect Indian artifacts and other reference materials. Returning to Paris, he began on a clay scale model, which he first showed at the Paris Salon in 1907. A year later, he exhibited the final full-sized sculpture, for which he was awarded the Prix de Rome. Soon after, it was shipped to the U.S., and arrived in Oskaloosa by railroad in September. The formal dedication of the statue, which was attended by a crowd of about 12,000 people, was held on May 12, 1909.
(Toledo, Ohio), a statue of Ira Allen
at the University of Vermont (Burlington), a memorial to Captain Thomas Abbey (Enfield, Connecticut), and a sculpture of Ceres, the goddess of grain, that stands on the peak of the Missouri State Capitol
dome (Jefferson City, Missouri). In addition, a number of Fry’s allegorical sculptures were among the artworks featured at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915.
in 1917, Fry (who was living in New York by then) saw a news photograph of camouflage created by artists serving in the French Army. He showed it to a friend, New Hampshire painter Barry Faulkner
, who was a cousin of Abbott Handerson Thayer
(the so-called “father of camouflage”), and a former student of the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens
.
By this time, both the French and the British had officially set up units of camouflage specialists called “camoufleurs,” many of whom were artists, architects and stage designers. Working together, Fry and Faulkner organized meetings with artists and government officials, in the hope of beginning an American camouflage unit.
Soon after, in 1917, the U.S. Army did set up an American Camouflage Corps (known officially as Company A of the 40th Engineers), and Fry and Faulkner were among the first enlistees. The two men chosen to lead that organization were Homer Saint-Gaudens (son of the celebrated sculptor, and Faulkner’s college roommate while at Harvard) and Evarts Tracy, the New York architect who had co-designed the Missouri state capitol building, and would later hire Sherry Fry to create Ceres for the dome.
This camouflage unit set sail for France on New Year’s Day in 1918. A month later, Fry and Faulkner were sent to the front lines, where their primary responsibility was the camouflage of artillery positions. Years later, Faulkner recalled Fry’s and his war experiences in several radio talks and an autobiography. Sherry Fry, said Faulkner, “had little sense of fear and less of discipline.” He also “had an insatiable curiosity” and “resented taking orders.” He defied regulations and went out alone in abandoned trenches, looking for enemy helmets, belt buckles and other souvenirs. These forays became his chief preoccupation, Faulkner recalled, and before long he was transferred to Chantilly, where because he was fluent in French he became an American liaison to the French camouflage unit.
, Futurism
, Dada
and other forms of Modern Art
. During the later years of his life, he worked out of his studio in Roxbury, Connecticut
, where he died in 1966.
Camouflage
Camouflage is a method of concealment that allows an otherwise visible animal, military vehicle, or other object to remain unnoticed, by blending with its environment. Examples include a leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier and a leaf-mimic butterfly...
during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
Early years
Fry was born in Creston, IowaCreston, Iowa
Creston is a city in and the county seat of Union County, Iowa, United States. The population was 7,597 at the 2000 census. McKinley Lake lies within a large, multi-purpose municipal park within the city limits, and three additional recreational lakes are located within seven miles of Creston:...
. After completing high school, he enrolled at 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...
, where he studied sculpture with Lorado Taft
Lorado Taft
Lorado Zadoc Taft was an American sculptor, writer and educator. Taft was born in Elmwood, Illinois in 1860 and died in his home studio in Chicago in 1936.-Early years and education:...
. He then moved to Paris, where he attended the Académie Julian
Académie Julian
The Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students to the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but offered...
and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...
, and worked with Frederick MacMonnies, who had been a student of the famous 19th-century American sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens
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"...
.
Judging from books and articles on American sculpture in the decade prior to World War I, Fry was apparently thought to have been a promising young artist, at a time sometimes referred to as “the golden age of sculpture.” Early in his career, he began to receive prestigious awards, including honorable mention at the Paris Salon
Paris Salon
The Salon , or rarely Paris Salon , beginning in 1725 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Between 1748–1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the Western world...
in 1906, as well as a medal in 1908; the Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...
, at the American Academy
American Academy
American Academy can refer to:*American Academy in Berlin*Dubai American Academy*American Academy of Larnaca*American Academy in Rome*Üsküdar American Academy...
in 1908; a silver medal at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915; and a gold medal at the National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
in 1917.
Statue of Mahaska
As Fry’s reputation increased, so did his opportunities for commissioned sculpture, especially commemorative statues, fountains and reliefs. His earliest public commission was a bronze statue of MahaskaChief Mahaska
Mahaska , or White Cloud, was a chief of the Native American Iowa tribe.-Early life and education:Mahaska was born into the Iowa tribe...
, the 19th-century leader of a Native American tribe called the Ioway. Recently restored, it still stands on its pedestal in the town square of Oskaloosa
Oskaloosa, Iowa
Oskaloosa is the county seat of Mahaska County, Iowa, United States. The population was 11,463 in the 2010 census, an increase from 10,938 in the 2000 census. -History:...
, which is the governmental seat of Mahaska County, Iowa, in the southeastern section of the state. At the right of the base is the artist’s signature “S.E. Fry, 1907.”
When he accepted the Mahaska commission in 1906, Fry was living in Paris. He returned to Iowa the following summer to make preparatory drawings of Meskwaki
Meskwaki
The Meskwaki are a Native American people often known to outsiders as the Fox tribe. They have often been closely linked to the Sauk people. In their own language, the Meskwaki call themselves Meshkwahkihaki, which means "the Red-Earths." Historically their homelands were in the Great Lakes region...
at the nearby Settlement at Tama, Iowa
Tama, Iowa
Tama is a city in Tama County, Iowa, United States. The population was 2,731 at the 2000 census. Tama is located a few miles from the Meskwaki Settlement, Iowa's only significant Native American community. Tama was located on the historic Lincoln Highway and is home to an original Lincoln Highway...
, and to collect Indian artifacts and other reference materials. Returning to Paris, he began on a clay scale model, which he first showed at the Paris Salon in 1907. A year later, he exhibited the final full-sized sculpture, for which he was awarded the Prix de Rome. Soon after, it was shipped to the U.S., and arrived in Oskaloosa by railroad in September. The formal dedication of the statue, which was attended by a crowd of about 12,000 people, was held on May 12, 1909.
Subsequent commissions
Among Fry’s other public works are a pediment for the Frick Museum (New York), reliefs for the Grant Memorial (Washington, DC) based on sketches by Henry Merwin Shrady, the fountains at the Toledo Museum of ArtToledo Museum of Art
The Toledo Museum of Art is an internationally known art museum located in the Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio, United States. The museum was founded by Toledo glassmaker Edward Drummond Libbey in 1901, and moved to its present location, a Greek revival building designed by Edward B....
(Toledo, Ohio), a statue of Ira Allen
Ira Allen
Ira Allen was one of the founders of Vermont, and leaders of the Green Mountain Boys; and was the brother of Ethan Allen.-Biography:...
at the University of Vermont (Burlington), a memorial to Captain Thomas Abbey (Enfield, Connecticut), and a sculpture of Ceres, the goddess of grain, that stands on the peak of the Missouri State Capitol
Missouri State Capitol
The Missouri State Capitol is located in the U.S. state of Missouri. Housing the Missouri General Assembly, it is located in the state capital of Jefferson City at 201 West Capitol Avenue. The domed building was designed by the New York architectural firm of Tracy and Swartwout and completed in 1917...
dome (Jefferson City, Missouri). In addition, a number of Fry’s allegorical sculptures were among the artworks featured at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915.
Involvement in camouflage
When the U.S. entered World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
in 1917, Fry (who was living in New York by then) saw a news photograph of camouflage created by artists serving in the French Army. He showed it to a friend, New Hampshire painter Barry Faulkner
Barry Faulkner
Barry Faulkner was an American artist who was primarily known for his murals. During World War I, he and sculptor Sherry Edmundson Fry organized artists for training as camouflage specialists , an effort that contributed to the founding of the American Camouflage Corps in 1917.-Background:Faulkner...
, who was a cousin of Abbott Handerson Thayer
Abbott Handerson Thayer
Abbott Handerson Thayer was an American artist, naturalist and teacher. As a painter of portraits, figures, animals and landscapes, he enjoyed a certain prominence during his lifetime, as indicated by the fact that his paintings are part of the most important U.S. art collections...
(the so-called “father of camouflage”), and a former student of the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens
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"...
.
By this time, both the French and the British had officially set up units of camouflage specialists called “camoufleurs,” many of whom were artists, architects and stage designers. Working together, Fry and Faulkner organized meetings with artists and government officials, in the hope of beginning an American camouflage unit.
Soon after, in 1917, the U.S. Army did set up an American Camouflage Corps (known officially as Company A of the 40th Engineers), and Fry and Faulkner were among the first enlistees. The two men chosen to lead that organization were Homer Saint-Gaudens (son of the celebrated sculptor, and Faulkner’s college roommate while at Harvard) and Evarts Tracy, the New York architect who had co-designed the Missouri state capitol building, and would later hire Sherry Fry to create Ceres for the dome.
This camouflage unit set sail for France on New Year’s Day in 1918. A month later, Fry and Faulkner were sent to the front lines, where their primary responsibility was the camouflage of artillery positions. Years later, Faulkner recalled Fry’s and his war experiences in several radio talks and an autobiography. Sherry Fry, said Faulkner, “had little sense of fear and less of discipline.” He also “had an insatiable curiosity” and “resented taking orders.” He defied regulations and went out alone in abandoned trenches, looking for enemy helmets, belt buckles and other souvenirs. These forays became his chief preoccupation, Faulkner recalled, and before long he was transferred to Chantilly, where because he was fluent in French he became an American liaison to the French camouflage unit.
Later years
In the years following World War I, Fry did not succeed in becoming the prominent American sculptor that, at one time, he seemed destined for. His work is rarely mentioned now, in part because he and other turn of the century sculptors began to look outdated in comparison to experiments in CubismCubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
, Futurism
Futurism (art)
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city...
, Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
and other forms of Modern Art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
. During the later years of his life, he worked out of his studio in Roxbury, Connecticut
Roxbury, Connecticut
Roxbury is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 2,136 at the 2000 census.-History:Roxbury, whose Indian name was "Shepaug", a Mahican name signifiying "rocky water", was settled about the year 1713...
, where he died in 1966.
Sources
- Behrens, Roy R. (1996), “Among the Dazzle Painters: Sherry Fry and the Invention of American Camouflage” in Tractor: Iowa Arts and Culture (Fall), pp. 26-28.
- ___ (1997), “Iowa’s Contribution to Camouflage” in Iowa Heritage Illustrated (Fall), pp. 98-109.
- ___ (2002), False Colors: Art, Design and Modern Camouflage. Dysart, Iowa: Bobolink Books. ISBN 0-9713244-0-9.
- ___ (2009), Camoupedia: A Compendium of Research on Art, Architecture and Camouflage. Dysart, Iowa: Bobolink Books. ISBN 9780971324466.
- Faulkner, Barry (1973), Sketches from an Artist’s Life. Dublin, New Hampshire: William Bauhan.
- Fry, Sherry Edmundson (1917), “An American Corps for Camouflage” in American Architect Vol 112 (July 25), p. 68.
- Rumrill, Alan F. and Carl B. Jacobs, Jr. (2007). Steps to Great Art: Barry Faulkner and the Art of the Muralist. Keene, New Hampshire: Historical Society of Cheshire County. [Includes a sound recording of Faulkner talking about World War I camouflage and other subjects.]