Ward was the fourth of eight children born to John Anderson Ward and Eleanor Macbeth in
Urbana, Ohio, a city founded by his paternal grandfather
Colonel William Ward. One of his younger brothers was the artist
Edgar Melville Ward. The family lived on William Ward's homestead and 600 acres of land after he died. Growing up, Ward liked to spend his time by the creek-bed fashioning mud into small figures and animals.[1] Ward's interest in three dimensional forms was encouraged by a neighbor and local potter, Miles Chatfield. At the age of 11, Chatfield allowed Ward to have the run of his studio and taught him how to throw a pot and decorate it with
bas-reliefs.[2] Ward spent several years working on his family farm, and after seeing a sculpture exhibition in Cincinnati in 1847, felt discouraged from pursuing an artistic career. His family proposed he study medicine, but after contracting malaria, he had to abandon his studies.
Ward later lived with his older sister Eliza and her husband Jonathan Wheelock Thomas in
Brooklyn, New York, where he trained for seven years (1849 to 1856) under the well-established sculptor
Henry Kirke Brown, who carved "J.Q.A. Ward, asst." on his
equestrian monument of George Washington in
Union Square. Ward went to Washington in 1857, where he made a name for himself with portrait busts of men in public life. In 1861, he worked for the
Ames Manufacturing Company of
Chicopee, Massachusetts, providing models for decorative objects including gilt-bronze sword hilts for the
Union Army.[3] Ames was one of the largest brass, bronze and iron foundries in the United States.[4]
Ward set up a studio in
New York City in 1861 and was elected to the
National Academy of Design the following year; he was their president until 1874. In 1882, a new New York home and studio on
52nd Street was designed for him by his friend
Richard Morris Hunt, who was to collaborate with him on many projects over the years.
Ward was dedicated to developing an American school of sculpture through his participation in organizations and teaching. He occasionally took on students and assistants, the most notable being Daniel Chester French, Jules Desbois, Francois J. Rey, and Charles Albert Lopez.[5] In 1888–1889, Ward, along with his studio assistant Francois J. Rey and a man named W. Hunt, taught a sculpture class at
The Metropolitan Museum of Art.[6] Four years later, he was invited by
Harvard University to give a series of lectures.[7]
Ward was married three times. He married his first wife, Anna Bannan, on February 10, 1858. After her death, he married Julia Devens Valentine on June 19, 1877. Julia died during childbirth on January 31, 1879.[citation needed]
Career
Nineteenth-century American commissions for sculpture were largely confined to portrait busts and monuments, where Ward was preeminent in his generation. Sculptors also made a living selling bronze reductions of their public works; Ward made use of new
galvanoplastic duplicating techniques; many of Ward's reductions and galvanoplastic and die-stamped relief panels survive.
Ward participated in numerous organizations and associations during his long career. He was a founder and president of the
National Sculpture Society (1893–1905), president of the
National Academy of Design (1874), and a member of the Fine Arts Federation, the Architectural League, the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, The American Institute of Architects, the National Arts Club, and the Century Association. He sat on the Advisory Committee of Fine Arts of the City of New York at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 and on the Advisory Committee of Sculptors at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904.[14] He was one of the original members of the Board of Trustees of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and served on its executive committee until 1901,[15] as well as one of the first trustees in 1897 for the
American Academy in Rome.[16]
1869 "Seventh Regiment Memorial",
Central Park, New York City.[21] The bronze of a standing Union soldier is set on a high granite pedestal along the West Carriage Drive at 69th Street. Actor and dramatist
Steele MacKaye, who served in the 7th Regiment, was its model.
Matthew Perry statue, Touro Park, Newport, Rhode Island
August Belmont statue, Newport, Rhode Island
Integrity Protecting the Works of Man on the pediment of the
New York Stock Exchange Building, Integrity, in the center, wears the winged cap of
Mercury, the god of commerce. The figures on her left represent mining and agriculture, and on her right, industry. The original pediment, carved from Georgia marble, weighed 90 tons, but time and pollution wore away at it, and in 1936 it was replaced by a copper and lead replica which weighs 10 tons.[23]
References
^Theodore Dreiser. "The Foremost of American Sculptors." The New Voice 16 (June 17, 1899), pp. 4, 5, 13.
^Prospectus, Art Schools of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 1888-1889, no. 6 (Department of American Paintings and Sculpture, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City).
^Letter from C. Eliot to John Quincy Adams Ward, October 23, 1893, (Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, New York).
Durante, Dianne. Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide (New York University Press, 2007): description and discussion of Ward's Washington, Greeley, Holley, Conkling, Dodge, and Shakespeare, all in New York, with a list of Ward's other works in the five boroughs.
Sharp, Lewis I. John Quincy Adams Ward, dean of American sculpture: with a catalogue raisonné. (Newark: University of Delaware, 1985)
Sharp, Lewis I. New York City Public Sculpture: By 19th-Century American Artists (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1974) page 12
Taft, Lorado, History of American Sculpture (New York, 1905)
Art and the empire city: New York, 1825-1861, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on John Quincy Adams Ward (see index)