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Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center
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GUIDE to the
JAMES EARLE FRASER & LAURA GARDIN FRASER STUDIO PAPERS, 1864-1968
JAMES EARLE FRASER (1876-1953) and LAURA GARDIN FRASER (1889-1966). Papers,
1864-1968.
17 cubic feet (16 document boxes, 8 flat boxes).
Location: 0191-0196; 0205; 0207; 0209; 0681.
Introduction:
James Earle Fraser and Laura Gardin Fraser were acclaimed and honored
monumental and numismatic artists and designers. The records, reflected
in this guide, are those that were included in the acquisition of items
from the Frasers’ Westport, Connecticut studio in 1968. The studio
collection also included heroic-size plaster statues, plaster models of
medals and coins, studio furniture, filing cabinets, artist tools, and
books. The collection was acquired in order to re-create a studio as a
memorial to the Frasers with the statue End of the Trail as its
centerpiece. Other statuary includes Meriwether Lewis, William Clark,
Daniel Boone, John James Audubon, Abraham Lincoln, General Robert E. Lee,
and General Stonewall Jackson.
Library items were cataloged and incorporated into the Center’s library
holdings. The papers, though incomplete, do convey important information
about these artist's lives and careers.
Biography:
James Earle Fraser was born November 4, 1876 in Winona, Minnesota, the
son of Thomas Alexander Fraser and Caroline E. (West) Fraser. Attending
public schools in Mitchell, South Dakota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and
Chicago, Illinois, Fraser studied art at the Chicago Art Institute under
Richard W. Bock, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Alexandre Falguere, and
at the Academies Julian and Colarossi in Paris.
Completed before he was seventeen years old in 1894 and probably one of
the best-known art pieces in America, the sculpture entitled End of
the Trail won the $1,000 award of the American Art Association
in Paris. According to Laura Gardin Fraser, this sculpture "was the
result of his boyhood spent on the prairies of South Dakota where he lived
on a ranch built by his father, who was in charge of engineering, supervising
the building of a railroad to Mitchell, South Dakota. He heard the pioneers
who would stop by the ranch house telling about the Indians being driven
across the country to the Pacific; and since the Indians had always been
friendly to his family he felt an early sympathy for the treatment that
was accorded them."
One of the Association's jury, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the designer of
the $10 and $20 eagle and double eagle coins in 1907 and considered by
many the greatest of modern sculptors, asked Fraser to become his assistant.
Fraser accompanied him to Windsor, Vermont in 1900 where he helped him
in his studio. Fraser took up the sport of golf through his Saint-Gaudens'
friendship.
In 1902 Fraser exhibited a portrait of Baby Hathaway Brewster and according
to his wife "from this time on he never ceased to have a commission."
He moved to New York City and established a studio at 3 Macdougal Alley.
The portraits he created at this time included: "Sonny" Whitney,
a relief of Sonny and Flora Whitney, and Jock Whitney. He made portraits
of Sherman and George Pratt, Jr. and later of Roland Harriman, E. H. Harriman,
Saint-Gaudens, President Theodore Roosevelt, Warren Delano, Elihu Root,
John Nance Garner, Dr. William M. Polk, Harvey Firestone, Thomas Edison,
Sage Goodwin, John Goodwin, Henrietta and John Deming, Pat Ford, and Eastman
Chase.
Between 1906 and 1911 he was an instructor at the Art Students' League
in New York City where he met and instructed his future wife, Laura Gardin.
Employing three different Indians as models, Fraser designed the Indian
Head or Buffalo type nickel five-cent piece which was first issued in
1913. He also designed the heroic equestrian groups on the Arlington Memorial
Bridge Plaza in Washington, D.C., the famous Navy Cross, and the marble
statue of Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia.
On November 27, 1913, Fraser married Laura Gardin. They purchased a colonial-era
house (the Coley house at Eleven O'Clock Road in Coleytown) in Westport,
Connecticut and later built a studio 60x30 feet in size and one and a
half stories high. In 1915 Fraser exhibited an 18-foot high plaster version
of his statue End of the Trail at the Panama Pacific Exposition
held in San Francisco, California. The statue won the Exposition's Gold
Medal and overnight became a popular subject in pictures, statuettes,
and countless themes and forms.
Fraser had hoped End of the Trail would be cast in bronze and placed
on Presidio Point overlooking San Francisco Bay following the exposition.
The coming of World War I, and the subsequent scarcity of metal made the
bronze casting impossible. The statue was then consigned to a scrap heap,
to be salvaged later by civic-minded citizens of Tulare County, California.
The statue was placed in Mooney Grove Park, near Visalia, in 1918. A bronze
was eventually cast for Waupun, Wisconsin, but in 1968 the National Cowboy
& Western Heritage Museum (nee National Cowboy Hall of Fame &
Western Heritage Center) transported the original plaster sculpture to
the museum where it was restored and molds drawn to make an original bronze
casting for Tulare County to replace the model. The statue was restored
by Leonard McMurry, of Oklahoma City. Cesare Contini, of New York City,
completed the restoration and created the molds for Tulare County's cast.
Acclaimed for his many medal and medallion designs, Fraser was the first
recipient of the Saltus Medal, the highest award for the art of the medal,
from the American Numismatic Society in 1919. Recipient of the 1951 gold
medal from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, Fraser also received
the Century Association Medal of Honor and the National Sculpture Society
Medal of Honor in 1952. He was President of this latter society between
1925 and 1926 and an honorary President between 1952 and 1953.
On October 11, 1953, Fraser died at his home at Eleven O' Clock Roads
in Westport, Connecticut.
Among the heroic statues and memorials are: John Jay Memorial, Cleveland,
OH; Bishop Potter, Cathedral St. John the Divine, NY; Fountain group for
E. H. Harriman, Arden, NY; Thomas Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis, and William
Clark for the State Capitol Building, Jefferson City, MO; Benjamin Franklin,
Springfield, IL; Two bridge groups, Pioneers and Discoverers, for
Michigan Avenue bridge, Chicago, IL; Abraham Lincoln for beginning of
Lincoln Highway, Jersey City, NJ; Seated statue of Thomas A. Edison, Edison
Institute, Dearborn, MI; seated statue of Harvey Firestone, Akron, OH;
Four symbolic figures in Elks National Memorial, Chicago, IL; Primitive
Inventor of Water Power for Majara Falls; Equestrian statue of Theodore
Roosevelt as the naturalist before the New York State Roosevelt Memorial
and on top of the four columns behind this statue are Daniel Boone, George
Rogers Clark, Meriwether Lewis, and John James Audubon, New York City;
General George S. Patton at West Point and also at Boston, MA; Canadian
officer, Winnipeg, Canada; Victory figure, Bank of Montreal, Montreal,
Canada; and the Mayo Brothers in Rochester, MN. In Washington, D.C.: the
John Ericcson Memorial; the Alexander Hamilton at the south front of the
Treasury building; Journey through Life at Rock Creek Cemetery;
Two figures of Law and Justice in front of Supreme Court Building; Archives
Pediment on the Constitution Avenue side of Archives Building; designed
four pediments on Commerce Building; the 2nd Division Memorial; Two groups,
the Peaceful Arts on the Lincoln Memorial Plaza forming the bridge
heads to the Rock Creek Bridge; and the recumbent figure of Dr. F. Ward
Denys, Washington Cathedral.
Laura Gardin Fraser was born September 14, 1889 in Chicago, IL,
the daughter of John Gardin and Alice Tilton Gardin. Her father a banker
and her mother a famous painter, Laura was the granddaughter of Theodore
Tilton, editor of the Independent. Fraser attended schools in Morton
Park, IL and Rye, NY and graduated from Horace Mann High School in 1907.
She studied with James Earle Fraser at the Art Students' League in New
York between 1907 and 1910. She won the Saint-Gaudens medal in her first
year, a scholarship in her second year, and in her last term the Saint-Gaudens
figure prize.
Fraser's career as a sculptor began with her creations of animals, fountains,
medals, and coins. With her design of the Alabama Centennial Commemorative
half dollar struck in 1921, she became the first woman to design a coin
for the United States Treasury. Her medal and coin designs include the
Charles Lindbergh Congressional Medal (1928); Gen. George C. Marshall
Congressional Medal (1946); Admiral Byrd Medal for the National Geographic
Society; the Massachusetts Tercentenary Medal; the American Geographical
Medal; the Dr. Walcott Smithsonian Institution Medal; the Grant Memorial
fifty-cent piece and gold dollar struck in 1922; the Fort Vancouver Centennial
Commemorative fifty cent piece (1925); and her one peso and fifty centavos
General MacArthur coin models for a new Philippines coinage. The only
project on which Laura and James collaborated was the Oregon Trail Memorial
Half Dollar issued originally in 1926.
While she was judged by the Commission of Fine Arts as the winner of the
1931 competition to obtain coin designs to honor George Washington on
the 200th anniversary of his birth, Laura did not get the commission.
The judges were overruled by Andrew Mellon the Treasury Secretary. Her
design was used in 1999 for a Washington Commemorative $5 gold piece (half
eagle) on the bicentennial of his death.
Animal sculptures include Baby Goat, Snuff, Timmy (dog owned by
Mrs. Calvin Coolidge), Miss Buck (a polo pony owned by Averill
Harriman), and Fairplay (life-size statue of champion racehorse
beside grave on the Joseph E. Widener estate in Lexington, Kentucky in
1929). Fountain sculptures include Baby Faun (figure at Lochmoor
Golf Club in Detroit and Grape Baby (figure located at Delaware
Park, Buffalo, NY).
She was commissioned to do several monuments including the heroic double
equestrian statue of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in Wyman Park,
Baltimore, MD; the three relief panels at the entrance portico to the
library at West Point depicting history of the United States; and a white
granite figure of Pegasus at Brook Green Gardens, SC. Other sculptures
include the Long, Long Trail, the Theodore Roosevelt relief of
Jay Norword Darling’s cartoon (a.k.a. Ding) the Roosevelt School
in Des Moines, IA; the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge Reliefs of Power,
Foresight, Courage, and Leadership in Washington,
D.C.; the Elks Memorial in Chicago, IL, and the Oklahoma Run panel
in Oklahoma City, OK.
In 1912 Fraser was elected to the National Sculpture Society and in 1915
she won the National Arts Club Medal of Honor. She received the Helen
Foster Barnett prize in 1916 and in 1919 she won the Julia Shaw Memorial
both from the National Academy of Design. She was a winner of the Saltus
Gold Medal from the National Academy of Design in 1924 and 1927. She was
the first woman to win the Saltus Medal of the American Numismatic Society
in 1926, the highest award for the art of the medal in the United States.
In 1929 Fraser won the Agar Prize at the National Association of Women
Painters and Sculptors. The Watrous Gold Medal was awarded to her from
the National Academy of Design in 1931.
Laura Gardin Fraser died on August 13, 1966 at Westport, Connecticut.
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Scope & Content Note:
Records include incoming letters, some correspondence, receipts, invoices,
photographs and photographic albums, scrapbooks, sketches and sketch books,
clippings, cabinet cards, stereographs, diary, manuscripts, booklets,
leaflets, programs, blueprints and engineering plans.
Because of the way this collection has been processed, organized and maintained
in the years following its acquisition (see organization & processing
information), its present organization and arrangement are based on four
ascribed series.
James
Earle Fraser (1908 - 1965) contains records related to James
Earle Fraser, housed in boxes 1 through 4, 15, and oversized boxes 1,
3, 4 and 6-8, and arranged for the most part alphabetically by folder
title. Biographical and career information are conveyed through incoming
letters and outgoing letter copies, scrapbooks, clippings, photographs,
and a few business records. The account book in box 15 includes records
of End of the Trail castings and sales by Roman Bronze Works.
Laura
Gardin Fraser (1889 - 1966) contains records related to Laura
Gardin Fraser, housed in boxes 4 through 8 and oversized boxes 1, 2 and
5, and arranged for the most part alphabetically by folder title. Biographical
and career information are conveyed though several scrapbooks, photograph
albums, and a diary dating between December 1, 1920 and May 21, 1924.
Some letters, photographs, programs, blueprints, and engineering plans
reflect her numismatic designer and sculptor activities. Blueprints of
the Lee-Jackson Memorial and engineering plans of the Theodore Roosevelt
Bridge Sculpture Reliefs are housed in oversize box 5. Stereographs, photographs
and clippings related to her design activities of the Lindbergh medal
are in box 6.
Subject
Files (1864 - 1964) contains records related to both artists,
housed in boxes 8 through 10, and arranged alphabetically by folder title.
New York Herald Tribune clippings of syndicated political cartoons
and several booklets created by Ding, a.k.a. Jay Norwood Darling are present
in box 8. Darling was a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist
at the Des Moines Register and a lifelong friend of the Frasers.
Miscellaneous
(ca. 1900 - 1968) contains primarily unattributed sketches, housed in
box 16.
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Organization:
From the time of the collection’s acquisition in 1968, the original
order of the records was disturbed. A tenuous order was applied and the
records became the basis of an expanding vertical file on the artists
and their activities and were maintained by staff and volunteers. Photocopied
materials, clippings, letters, photographs, and manuscripts, which postdated
the original primary records, were added to folders which were organized
topically around each of the artists and around a subject file. This organization
provided the basis of the organization during the collection's reprocessing
in 2000.
Among the added materials were photocopied documents from the James
Earle & Laura Gardin Fraser Papers, 1872 - 1967 held by Syracuse
University.
Subject Terms:
Personal Names:
Darling, Jay Norwood, 1876-1962
Firestone, Harvey Samuel, 1868-1938
Fraser, James Earle, 1876-1953
Fraser, James Earle, 1876-1953. End of the Trail
Fraser, Laura Gardin, 1889-1968
Lindbergh, Charles Augustus, 1902-1974
Subject Headings:
Artists, American.
Coin design.
Coinage-United States.
Medals-United States.
Numismatics.
Sculptors, American.
Sculptors-United States.
Sculpture, American.
Sculpture-United States-History.
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Accession Information:
The studio collection from Westport, Connecticut was acquired through
a gift-purchase transaction between Syracuse University, the executors
of the estate, and Dean Fenton Krakel, Director of the National Cowboy
Hall of Fame & Western Heritage Center in 1968.
Processing Information:
In 2000 the Research Center Director reprocessed the collection by retaining
its present organization and removing records which postdated 1968, the
year the collection was acquired and two years after Laura Gardin Fraser's
death. The removed records became the basis for a number of large Fraser
vertical files arranged topically and available in the Research Center.
An addendum to the studio collection is the Syracuse University materials
which were refoldered and arranged according to the Syracuse box in which
the original materials are housed. Their order is reflected by the bracketed
box numbers following the series and folder descriptions found in the
Syracuse finding aid. The present finding aid was completed in January
2001.
Ownership & Literary Rights:
The James Earle Fraser and Laura Gardin Fraser Studio Papers is the property
of the Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center, National
Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. Literary right, including copyright,
belongs to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, with the
exception of copyrighted images and published literary works, which are
the property of the respective copyright holders. It is the responsibility
of the researcher, and his/her publisher, to obtain publishing permission
from individuals pictured, relevant copyright holders, and the National
Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
Restrictions on Access:
This collection is open for research. It is advisable for researchers
to discuss their research with staff prior to visiting the Center.
Preferred Citation:
James Earle Fraser & Laura Gardin Fraser Studio Papers, Box ##, Folder
##, Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage
Museum, Oklahoma City, OK.
