The Three Graces (Whitney) Explained

The Three Graces
Artist:Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
Metric Unit:cm
Imperial Unit:in
City:Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Coordinates:45.5047°N -73.577°W
Mapframe:yes
Mapframe-Zoom:13
Owner:McGill University

The Three Graces, also known as Carytid Fountain Group,[1] Friendship Fountain, The Three Bares,[2] and Three Bares Fountain,[3] is an outdoor fountain and sculpture by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, installed in 1931 at Montreal's McGill University, in Quebec, Canada.

Description and history

Whitney's caryatid figure dated back to 1913 when she won an award for it at the Paris Salon and from the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. It had been modeled for the Arlington Hotel in Washington, D.C.[4] The original hotel was demolished in 1912 to make room for a larger hotel, that was to include Whitney's caryatid, but its funding fell through and it was never built.[5] The figure was exhibited at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915, and a bronze version of it was erected in Lima, Peru in 1924. At the time of the fountain's unveiling, it was draped in a Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes, Whitney, in poor health and in mourning over the death of her husband Harry Payne Whitney, did not attend. She also missed the unveiling of her Titanic Memorial in Washington D.C. three days before.[6]

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Carytid Fountain Group. Gertrude Vanderbilt. Whitney. Smithsonian Institution. 11 August 2017.
  2. Web site: The Three Bares - Visual Arts Collection - McGill University. Mcgill.ca. 11 August 2017.
  3. Web site: Three Bares Fountain. Art Public Montréal. 9 December 2020.
  4. Proske, Beatrice Gilman, Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture, Printed by Order of the Trustees Brookgreen S.C., 1943, p.220
  5. Goode, James M., Capitol Losses: A Cultural History of Washington’s Destroyed Buildings, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D.C. 1979 pp.176-178
  6. Friedman, B.H., Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney: a biography by B.H. Friedman with the research collaboration of Flora Miller Irving, Doubleday & Company, New York, 1978, p. 548