Monument City Blog

Edmund George Lind was one of America’s earliest successful architects.  Born in England in 1829, Lind eventually studied at the London School of Design.  After apprenticing in several offices in his home country, he moved to New York City to work for Nathan G. Starkweather.  The partnership gained commissions in Baltimore with Lind completing Starkweather’s design of Mount Vernon’s First and Franklin Presbyterian Church.  The young architect soon switched firms, joining William T. Murdoch.  Edmund’s most famous work, the Peabody Institute Library, comes from this period.

Lind’s artistic endeavors were not limited to building design.  He was interested in the correlation between math, music and color.  Inspired by the acoustic properties of his physical creations, Edmund began using the number seven to create the perfect environment for sound.  He noticed the relationship between the seven colors of the spectrum and the seven tones of the diatonic scale.  Applying these principals to popular music of the time, Lind created visual representations of song.  One piece he transposed to color was Francis Scott Key’s Star-Spangled Banner.  His essays and drawings on the subject are kept at the Peabody Library.

Stanford White (1853-1906) was one of the most successful and gifted architects of the Gilded Age.  A partner in the prominent New York design firm, McKim, Mead and White, Stanford was known for his detailed artistic renderings.  Specializing in elaborate private residences, he created a variety of houses throughout the eastern United States, along with public buildings and churches.  The second Madison Square Garden was designed by White, its rooftop the eventual site of his highly publicized murder.  In 1906, White was shot in the head by the millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw during the premiere performance of Mam’zelle Champagne. Thaw, an avid drug user and possible sadist, was the husband of 21 year-old Evelyn Nesbit, a model, actress and former lover of White.  The murder was mistaken as exhibition by the excited Madison Square Roof Garden crowd, cheers gleefully trailing three point blank pistol shots.  Two massively popular trials ensued and Thaw, after pleading temporary insanity, was sentenced to an asylum.  He walked in 1915 and continued his abusive, bizarre life.

White designed north Baltimore’s Lovely Lane United Methodist Church in 1884.  Then known as the First Methodist Episcopal Church, the building at 2200 Saint Paul Street was completed in 1887.  The Romanesque Revival style construct was modeled after the basilicas of Italy, the tower closely resembling Pomposa Abbey.

The Baltimore born Wendel Bollman (1814-1884) designed the first iron truss bridge in the United States.  In 1847, working under the engineer Benjamin H. Latrobe II, son of the U. S. Capitol’s architect, Benjamin Latrobe, Bollman was named head of the Harper’s Ferry, Virginia line of bridges for the B&O Railroad.  Realizing that standard wooden bridges decayed too rapidly, he turned to the less frequently used iron for construction.  The self-taught engineer’s structures performed well and the iron truss bridge was quickly adopted by his bosses.  He received a patent for his truss design, vaulting him to the top of his profession.  Wendel Bollman’s importance to the advancement of American engineering is rooted in his methods.  His use of math and logic helped pave the way for a more scientific approach to civil planning.

Only one Bollman bridge, located in Savage, MD, remains today.  The rest have either been replaced or were destroyed.  His most famous bridge (at Harper’s Ferry) was taken out several times during the Civil War.  The strategic overpass was rebuilt and lasted until 1936, when it was wiped out during a devastating flood.  However, two of his iron creations still adorn historic Baltimore buildings.  The dome of City Hall’s rotunda and the steeple of the First and Franklin Presbyterian Church were fashioned by Bollman.

In 1803, Benjamin H. Latrobe became the superintendent of construction for the United States.  He began his tenure by focusing efforts on the unfinished Capitol building in Washington.  His ideas and designs, heavily influenced by roman architecture, contained elaborate frieze and relief work.  Unsatisfied with American artists of the early 19th century, the British-born architect began corresponding with colleagues in Europe in hopes of hiring a more skilled set of sculptors.  This opened the door for numerous European artisans to earn generous commissions in the United States.  This ongoing list deals with the sculptors of early America and their extant work in Baltimore.

Antonio Capellano

1. Angel of Truth (First Unitarian Church)
2. Battle Monument
3. Christ Breaking Bread and Moses with Tables of Law (Old Saint Paul’s Church)
4. Bust of George Washington (Peale Museum)

Enrico Causici

1. Washington Resigning his Commission (Washington Monument)

Augustin Chevalier

1. Ceres and Neptune (Peale Museum Courtyard)

Giuseppe Ceracchi

1. Bust of George Washington (Washington Monument Museum)

Giuseppe Franzoni

1. Saint Mary’s Chapel (interior sculptures)

Giovanni Andrei

1. Saint Mary’s Chapel (interior sculptures)

The first piece of gallery sculpture owned by the city of Baltimore was a bust of George Washington by Antonio Capellano.  In 1823, Capellano, then living in Charm City, was anxious to obtain the commission for the statue of Washington planned for the Mount Vernon Place Monument.  As an example of his work he presented the city with a marble likeness of America’s first president.  He subsequently lost the commission to Italian artist Enrico Causici, but the gifted bust was kept and initially displayed in Rembrandt Peale’s Baltimore Museum.  The photograph below comes from The Story of America’s Oldest Museum Building by Wilbur Harvey Hunter.

The commission for the Battle Monument was won by French architect Maximilian Godefroy in 1815, one year after the Battle of Baltimore.  Godefroy hired Italian artist Antonio Capellano to complete the statue and relief work he incorporated into his design.  While waiting for Godefroy during the monument’s conception Capellano was hired by Robert Cary Long, Sr. to create facade reliefs for the third Old St. Paul’s Church.  The building burned down in 1854, but the sculptures were spared and installed in Richard Upjohn’s building that stands today.  Capellano and Godefroy also worked together on the First Unitarian Church (just north of the Basilica, approaching the Washington Monument) for which the Italian sculptor created the Angel of Truth.

Monuments in Baltimore by J. Maxwell Miller:

• Star-Spangled Banner Memorial at Patterson Park
• Confederate Women of Maryland Monument
• Latrobe Monument (with Edward Berge)
• Poetry Panel (Concert Hall of the Peabody Institute)

J. Maxwell Miller (1877-1934) studied sculpture under William Rinehart at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, and between 1900 and 1905, traveled to France to learn further from Raoul Verlet at the Julian Academy in Paris.  His creations were well received in Europe, and when he returned to Baltimore he began his private practice preparing fine art for commission.  Miller’s detailed work is best exemplified by his Star-Spangled Banner Memorial in Patterson Park.  Dedicated in 1914, during the city’s massive centennial celebration of defensive victory in the War of 1812, the monument was placed directly in front of the park’s observatory.  The accessible location allows for close inspection of the artist’s craft.

Monuments in Baltimore by Edward Berge:

• Chapin Harris
• On the Trail
• Latrobe (with J. Maxwell Miller)
• George Armistead (Ft McHenry)
• Col. William Watson
• Sea Urchin – JHU
• Sea Urchin – Mt Vernon (enlargement by son, Henry Berge)
• Servicemen’s Memorial at Belair Road and Shannon Drive
• Thomas Gordon Hayes Statue (City Hall)

Monuments in Baltimore by Hans Schuler:

• Fallsway Fountain
• Martin Luther
• Johns Hopkins
• Sidney Lanier
• Pulaski
• Samuel Smith
• ‘Centennial Eagle’ at City Hall
• ‘To The Glory of Maryland’ at the Armory
• Francis Scott Key Marker
• William Pinkney Whyte Statue (City Hall)
• Music Panel (Concert Hall of the Peabody Institute)
• Hampden Elementary Sculpture (Hans Schuler, Jr.)

Hans Schuler (1874-1951) was born in Alsace-Lorraine, Germany.  He moved with his family to the United States as a child, settling in Baltimore, where he spent the rest of his life.  Schuler studied under William Rinehart at the Maryland Institute College Art, and eventually traveled to France to further his education with Raoul Verlet.  In 1901, he won the Salon Gold Medal in Paris, making him the first American sculptor to receive the prestigious award.  Along with his numerous outdoor public monuments in Baltimore, his work can also be found in important art galleries such as the Walters Art Museum and the Fogg Art Museum.  He also created a multitude of cemetery pieces, most of which are located in Green Mount, Loudon Park and Druid Ridge Cemeteries.  Hans Schuler was director of MICA from 1925 until the year of his death.

In 1906, Schuler moved into his studio and residence at 5 E. Lafayette Street, now the Schuler School of Fine Arts and Gallery.  Established by his children, the small school offers a curriculum organized around realist art and a study of the Old Masters.  Most of Schuler’s work was created in the 2-story, Howard Sill designed building.