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Found Remnants / Sculptural Decorations

Adolph Weinman
Two remarkable fountains sat at opposite sides of the sunken garden in the Court of the Universe. In the lower pool of each fountain, four of Adolph Weinman’s bearded Mer-Centaurs, whose lower extremities were those of a fish, mid-body that of a horse, and upper body a human, grappled with either a large fish or a giant sea serpent which spouted jets of water into the upper pool. Rising from this pool was a five foot wide thirty foot tall column surmounted by another of Weinman's sculptures. Perched atop the eastern column was Weinman’s, The Rising Sun, and seeming as if it had just alighted upon the sphere atop the western column was his exquisite, Descending Night.

Though these two winged figures were inspired examples of figurative art, it’s doubtful that any of the fairgoers were able to appreciate Weinman’s extraordinary accomplishment for they were placed so far above the would be viewer that their subtlety of detail was lost to the onlooker standing below. Viewed against the glare of the foggy daytime sky, they were reduced to mere silhouettes. At night, though hidden searchlights managed to illumine their forms, they were forced to vie for attention with the very columns upon which they stood.

During the day these fluted columns appeared to be made of travertine marble, but each night they were gloriously transformed into magnificent shafts of light glowing with a mysterious radiance. This lighting effect was achieved by mounting ninety-six 1500 watt nitrogen-filled lamps inside each of the two glass columns whose interior walls had been sandblasted to diffuse the brilliant light. While dazzling nighttime visitors, this marvel of lighting wizardry was so distracting that the two sculptures crowning the columns were relegated to the status of a mere “side show”.

After the close of the Exposition, Weinman wrote to the Exposition Company to ask if he could be granted the right to reproduce the sculptures he’d produced for use in the Exposition. The directors conveyed their appreciation for his contribution and granted his request. Luckily, Weinman did not suffer the fate that befell a fellow sculptor, James Earle Fraser, who sculpted The End of the Trail for the Exposition. Because the Exposition hadn’t bothered to apply for copyrights for any of the sculptures created as decoration for the grounds, Fraser never received any compensation for the reproductions of this work that started being sold as souvenirs early in the fair season. Though he openly complained about the costs to him of this oversight, neither he nor the Exposition Company had any legal recourse. Weinman escaped the same fate only because no enterprising entrepreneur had thought to reproduce his sculptures before he successfully obtained the copyrights to the work for himself.

Weinman reproduced bronzes of Ascending Day and Descending Night in at least two different scales one measuring approximately 26 inches tall and the other approximately 57 inches. Sometime before his death in 1952, he made a gift of the smaller version of these two statues to the White House in Washington D.C. Other bronzes at this scale appear in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, R.W. Norton Art Gallery in Shreveport, Louisiana, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Forest Lawn Museum in Glendale, California. Copies of the larger version are held by the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the University of Illinois’ Krannert Art Museum, and the William Randolph Hearst San Simeon Monument.

The Fountain of the Centaurs, featuring a nine foot tall bronze copy of each of Weinman’s Mer-Centaurs, is located on the north grounds of the Missouri State Capitol Building in Jefferson City, Missouri. A relief sculpture entitled, The Signing of the Treaty was one of many sculptures arrayed around the banks of the Palace of Fine Arts’ lagoon when on display at the PPIE. The work of Karl Bitter, Chief of Sculpture for the PPIE, it depicts the signing of the Louisiana Purchase Treaty, and serves as a centerpiece for the architecture of the Fountain of the Centaurs. The maquettes for the Mer-Centaurs are part of the University of Missouri Museum of Art and Archaeology permanent collection.

Thanks to L.T. Shelton, Curator of Collections, Missouri State Museum, for the information he provided on Wineman's work for the Missouri Capitol.

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