September 5/6, 2020 – FROM SOARING HEROS TO CLASSIC MEDALLIONS

By admin

I cannot believe this Monday is our 150th issue!!!
Send us your favorite articles and items that were in the first 149 issues of FROM THE ARCHIVES.
Your comments are welcome too.
We will feature them in issue #150. Issue #150 is on MONDAY.
Send to rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com

WEEKEND EDITION

SEPTMEBER 5-6,  2020
The
149th Edition

DONALD DE LUE

MASTER IN BRONZE

THE ROCKET THROWER
FLUSHING MEADOWS PARK, NY

The “Rocket Thrower” by Donald De Lue commissioned for the 1964 Worlds Fair, in Flushing Meadows Park in Queens in New York

Life and career
De Lue studied at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and later served as an assistant to sculptors Richard Henry Recchia and Robert P. Baker. This was followed by five years in Paris where he continued his study, while working as an assistant to various French artists.

He returned to the United States where he was engaged by Bryant Baker. In 1940 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1943. In 1941, De Lue won a competition to create sculpture for the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse Building in Philadelphia, and from then on he stopped being an assistant for other artists and only worked on his own commissions and creations.

De Lue’s works can be found in many museums across America. Like many other sculptors of his generation, he executed architectural works. He was also a prolific designer of medals and medallions. De Lue taught at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City during the early 1940s. (See Issue #142 on August 28th)

In 1960, he won two Henry Hering Awards, given by the National Sculpture Society for outstanding collaboration between a sculptor and an architect, for the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, and for the Stations of the Cross at the Loyola Jesuit Seminary in Shrub Oak, New York.

In 1967, De Lue won the American Numismatic Society’s J. Sanford Saltus Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Art of the Medal, known as the Saltus Award. Beginning in 1964, for many years De Lue was a Trustee of Brookgreen Gardens, as well as Chairman of the Art Committee. In his later years, De Lue and his wife Naomi (who served as a model for many of his statues) lived in the Leonardo section of Middletown Township, New Jersey, a small shore town with a bayside beach and long-distance view of lower Manhattan.

De Lue cited the 23rd Psalm and the words “He leadeth me beside the still waters…” as the inspiration by which he arrived in Leonardo from New York City. Although he continued to maintain his NYC apartment, it was in his Leonardo studio that many of his largest statues were made. One of the last was a commission by a private individual intended for the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. The bigger-than-life statue of Bowie, Travis and Crockett was considered “too violent” by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas for placement in a sacred chapel.

A compromise was sought, that the statue be installed outside the building in the large courtyard rather than inside. DeLue and his patron, a wealthy Texan, preferred the statue be installed in the interior space for which it was made. Unfortunately, the impasse was never resolved in De Lue’s lifetime. Donald and Naomi De Lue are buried in Manalapan Township, New Jersey at the cemetery at Old Tennent Presbyterian Church.

PHOTO  NY DAILY NEWS  (C) 2013

JUSTICE AND LAW
PHILADELPHIA  FEDERAL BUILDING 
1941

• 

• 

THE ALCHEMIST
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
1940

NORMANDY AMERICAN CEMETERY
COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, FRANCE

The loggias and colonnade are made of Vaurion, a French limestone from the Cote d’Or region. Centered in the open arc of the memorial facing the graves area is a 22-foot tall bronze statue, The Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves, created by the American sculptor Donald De Lue. The statue stands on a rectangular pedestal of Ploumanach granite from Brittany, France. Encircling the pedestal of the statue on the floor in bronze letters is the inscription: MINE EYES HAVE SEEN THE GLORY OF THE COMING OF THE LORD.

ICARUS

Donald De Lue, Icarus, modeled 1934, signed 1945, plaster with metallic patination, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of the artist, 1989.29

JACOBI HOSPITAL, BRONX, NY

Donald De Lue Untitled, 1954
incised white marble relief 11′ x 7′
Main entrance lobby (Abraham Jacobi Hospital Building)

HALL OF FAME FOR GREAT AMERICANS
BRONX, NEW YORK

By D. Wayne Johnson, Copyright © 2004
Hall of Fame for Great Americans at NYU

One of the most popular portrait series of medals in the world, the Hall of Fame for Great Americans Series honors the most famous Americans chosen by highly selected judging committees and sponsored by New York University. The first election was held in 1900 — when a building was erected to house the Hall and an ongoing collection of statues. Elections were held every five years thereafter. Bronze statues of the honorees were installed within outside niches along the open colonnade at the University Heights campus. It partly surrounds a Pantheon style building created by architect Stamford White that has served as a library and auditorium over its first century.
The Medals.

In 1962 a coalition was formed to sponsor and market fine art medals to honor these same famous Americans. The coalition consisted of New York University, the owner of the Hall of Fame; the National Sculpture Society, which would furnish an art committee; the Medallic Art Company, which would manufacture the medals; and the Coin and Currency Institute which would market the medals.

The Art Committee was formed of five members with sculptor Donald De Lue as chairman; this committee issued commissions to American sculptors who expressed an interest in creating one or more of the medals. (Those sculptors who had created the bust were given first choice to do the medal.) Over the next 13 years, 96 medalswere created by 42 sculptors, predominantly members of the National Sculpture Society.

Rules for the medal design were simple. It had to bear a portrait on the obverse, significant scene from that subject’s accomplishment for the reverse. The lettering HALL OF FAME FOR GREAT AMERICANS AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY must appear on the medal, either side was permissible. While the design was left to the artist, each submission had to pass the approval of the Art Committee composed of the artist’s sculptural peers. Medals were struck in two sizes. A large 3-inch (76mm) size in bronze only, and a small 1 3/4-inch (44mm) in bronze and silver. The silver was serially numbered.

Medalist Laura Gardin Fraser had selected two medals to create — Mary Lyon and Gilbert Stuart — but died before completing the models. Sculptor Karl Gruppe finished the two medals as close to her designs and style as possible. The two Wright Brothers, with different statues and years of election, appear on one medal, by Paul Fjelde.
Later status.
In 1973 and 1976 the last 20th century elections were held and seven new honorees* were elected into the Hall (which would fill in every niche in the colonnade). In 1973 New York University sold their University Heights Campus to City College of New York along with the building and the statues forming the Colonnade. The statues, and the Hall of Fame itself, were in limbo for awhile. Bronx Community College, which now occupies the campus, is present stewardship of the Hall.

Since 1977 no elections have been held, no new statues erected or medals issued. However, visitors to New York City can still travel to University Heights in the Bronx and walk the Colonnade, viewing the magnificent statues overlooking the Hudson River. Or they can build a set of fine art medals created by some of the most talented medalists of the 20th century with high relief portraits and stunning medallic art. * For 1973: Louis Brandeis, George Washington Carver, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John Phillip Sousa. For 1976: Clara Barton, Luther Burbank and Andrew Carnegie.

WEEKEND PHOTO 

WHAT AND WHERE IS THIS?
SEND RESPONSE TO: ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAILCOM
WIN A KIOSK TRINKET.

FRIDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

SAYRE AND FISHER BRICK THAT WAS PLACED 
ON THE REVERSE IN THE CHAPEL. IT IS ON THE NORTH WALL NEAR THE EXIT

A little information about the bricks in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd:

Sayre and Fisher Brick Company was established in 1850 by James R. Sayre, Jr., and Peter Fisher,and later became one of the USA’s leading manufacturers of building brick, fire brick, and enamel brick.

In 1876 the area around the village then known as Wood’s Landing was renamed Sayreville, after the company’s co-founder. It eventually acquired most factories along the Raritan River, and by 1905 operated a two-mile-long complex with 13 separate yards. By 1912, production reached 62 million bricks a year, providing employment for a large part of the local population, some of whom lived in company housing.

The complex included a power plant, granary, bakery, slaughterhouse, coal yard, ice plant, general store, machine shop, and blacksmith shop. Among the structures built with bricks from the company are the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, the base of the Statue of Liberty, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Brick manufacturing declined in the Great Depression, but recovered and stayed profitable into the 1960s. The Sayre and Fisher plant closed in 1970. While most of the industrial buildings were razed, the reading room and some housing buildings remain. The water tower has been restored.

   

NEW ITEM AT THE KIOSK

NOW AT THE KIOSK

11 x 17″ Poster   $12-
KIOSK OPEN WEEKEND 12 NOON TO 5 P.M.
SHOP IN PERSON OR ON-LINE

ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM

EDITORIAL

When researching artwork at other municipal hospitals, we discovered the work of Donald De Lue.  Turns out we found another great artist and his work.
Our H+H system has an amazing collection of artworks and we will feature more in the future.

Enjoy the story of the backwards brick at the Chapel.  Next time you are there, see if you can locate it.

Judith Berdy

Funding Provided by:
Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation Public Purpose Funds
Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD
Text by Judith Berdy

CREDITS:

NEW YORK TIMES
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
WIKIPEDIA
NYC PARKS DEPT.
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Deborah Dorff
ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2020 (C)
 PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS

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