William Walcutt Explained

William Walcutt (April 28, 1818, Columbus, Ohio  - April 22, 1882, New York City) was an American painter and sculptor, best remembered for the Perry Monument in Cleveland, Ohio.^[1]

Biography

He studied in London in 1852, followed by two years in Paris studying painting with Adolphe Yvon and sculpture at the École Impériale et Spéciale des Beaux-Arts. He returned to the United States in 1854, and opened a studio in New York City.^[2]

His most famous work is the Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry Monument (1860), that originally stood in the Public Square in Cleveland, Ohio.^[3] The monument was relocated several times, and since 1991 has stood in Fort Huntington Park, beside the Cuyahoga County Courthouse.^[4] His weathered marble statue of Perry was replaced with a bronze copy in 1928. A second bronze copy stands outside the Rhode Island Statehouse, in Providence, Rhode Island.^[5] The original marble is now displayed inside the visitor center at the Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial in Put-in-Bay, Ohio.^[6] Walcutt's statue appears on the 2013 "Perry's Victory" quarter.^[7]

His 1857 historical painting, Pulling Down the Statue of George III, is in the collection of Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania.^{[8] [9]} Portraits of Taft family members by him are at the William Howard Taft National Historic Site in Cincinnati, Ohio.^{[10] [11] [12]}

A Neoclassical statue by him, Musidora (marble, 1868), is in the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. He may have modeled the original statue  - possibly copied from a European source  - for The Boy with the Boot, a zinc fountain sculpture that was patented in 1875 by J. L. Mott Iron Works of New York City. Mott mass-produced the statue into the 1910s (as The Unfortunate Boot); and other manufacturers continued production into the 1950s.^[13] The example in Sandusky, Ohio, moved inside the City Building following vandalism in the 1990s, is credited to Walcutt.^[14]

Walcutt's papers are at the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution.^[15]

References

Sources

• Inauguration of the Perry Statue: at Cleveland, on the tenth of September 1860, (Cleveland City Council, 1860).
• Joseph T. Hannibal, "The Commodore Perry Statue: History and Weathering of Ohio's First Monumental Marble Sculpture," (March 2011).

External links

• • Commodore Perry, from Historic Perrysburg.
• A True American: William Walcutt, Nativism, and Nineteenth-Century Art (Fordham University Press, 2022)

Notes and References

1. http://www.askart.com/AskART/artists/biography.aspx?artist=70782 William Walcutt
2. Inauguration, p. 126.
3. Web site: Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry Historical Marker.
4. http://ech.cwru.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=PM1 Perry Monument
5. http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=1K6039DM58522.1083&profile=ariall&source=~!siartinventories&view=subscriptionsummary&uri=full=3100001~!331731~!0&ri=4&aspect=Browse&menu=search&ipp=20&spp=20&staffonly=&term=Walcutt,+William,[phone]/95,+sculptor.+(copy+after)&index=AUTHOR&uindex=&aspect=Browse&menu=search&ri=4 Oliver Hazard Perry, (sculpture)
6. http://ohiocityproductions.com/touring-ohio.com/northwest/sandusky/victory-memorial.html Perry's Victory & International Peace Memorial
7. http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/atb/?local=PerrysVictory Perry's Victory quarter
8. http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=1K6039DM58522.1083&profile=ariall&source=~!siartinventories&view=subscriptionsummary&uri=full=3100001~!81487~!1&ri=7&aspect=Browse&menu=search&ipp=20&spp=20&staffonly=&term=Walcutt,+William+W.,[phone]/95,+painter.&index=AUTHOR&uindex=&aspect=Browse&menu=search&ri=7 Pulling Down the Statue of George III
9. https://artcollections.lafayette.edu/2015/07/09/william-walcutt-pulling-down-the-statue-of-george-iii-at-bowling-green-n-y-july-9-1776/ Pulling Down the Statue of George III
10. http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=146046W910298.1420&profile=ariall&source=~!siartinventories&view=subscriptionsummary&uri=full=3100001~!349489~!9&ri=1&aspect=Keyword&menu=search&ipp=20&spp=20&staffonly=&term=walcutt,+william&index=.AW&uindex=&aspect=Keyword&menu=search&ri=1 Alphonzo Taft, (painting)
11. http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=146046W910298.1420&profile=ariall&source=~!siartinventories&view=subscriptionsummary&uri=full=3100001~!349488~!8&ri=1&aspect=Keyword&menu=search&ipp=20&spp=20&staffonly=&term=walcutt,+william&index=.AW&uindex=&aspect=Keyword&menu=search&ri=1 Louise M. Taft, (painting)
12. http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=146046W910298.1420&profile=ariall&source=~!siartinventories&view=subscriptionsummary&uri=full=3100001~!66772~!0&ri=1&aspect=Keyword&menu=search&ipp=20&spp=20&staffonly=&term=walcutt,+william&index=.AW&uindex=&aspect=Keyword&menu=search&ri=1 Peter Rawson Taft, (painting)
13. Book: Grissom, Carol. https://books.google.com/books?id=OY_o8YXKg8QC&pg=PA330. Zinc Sculpture in America: 1850–1950. 12 April 2016. 2009. Associated University Presses. 9780874130317. 330–333. Boy with Leaky Boot. Lists 33 current or former locations of the statue in the United States.
14. http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=146046W910298.1420&profile=ariall&source=~!siartinventories&view=subscriptionsummary&uri=full=3100001~!334429~!13&ri=1&aspect=Keyword&menu=search&ipp=20&spp=20&staffonly=&term=walcutt,+william&index=.AW&uindex=&aspect=Keyword&menu=search&ri=1 Boy with the Boot (sculpture)
15. http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/william-walcutt-papers-6169 William Walcutt Papers