Angela Gregory

Angela Gregory (October 18, 1903 – February 13, 1990) was an American sculptor and professor of art. Gregory has been called the "doyenne of Louisiana sculpture". She became one of the few women of her era to be recognized nationally in a field generally dominated by men.

Early life Angela Gregory was born on October 18, 1903 in New Orleans, Louisiana, to parents William B. Gregory and Selina Bres Gregory. Her mother, Selina Bres Gregory, She was awarded a one-year scholarship to the Paris branch of the Parsons School of Fine and Applied Arts to study illustrative advertising. Her real purpose in going to Paris, however, was to study stonecutting with the noted French sculptor, Antoine Bourdelle. Bourdelle had been a praticien in the studio of Auguste Rodin for many years before establishing his own studio in Paris in a cluster of buildings located on what was then Impasse du Maine. Today the buildings house the Musée Bourdelle on Rue Antoine Bourdelle.

Gregory studied for two years, 1926–1928, with Bourdelle, the only American admitted as a student to his private studios. She also took classes from him at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Early on, she asked Bourdelle what it would cost to study with him in his private studios. He replied, “I am an artist, not a businessman.” He refused any payment. Gregory sculpted a portrait bust of Campbell in the studio and as she worked the clay, the Master would occasionally step in to provide a critique and a philosophical discourse on the nature of art. The two young people were both deeply affected and influenced by the words of the Master.

Gregory also reconnected Campbell with Krishnamurti, who was posing for a portrait bust for Bourdelle at the time. Meeting Krishna again and attending one of his lectures at the Theosophical Society with Gregory was an important turning point in Campbell’s life.

In February 2019, the University of South Carolina Press published a memoir of Angela Gregory's years in Paris, A Dream and a Chisel: Louisiana Sculptor Angela Gregory in Paris, 1925-1928, co-authored by Angela Gregory and Nancy L. Penrose.

Career

Gregory returned to New Orleans in 1928. The contrast with Paris was a shock: "There was no music, no art. It was hot as Hades. There was nothing. I thought I would go out of my mind. But after a while I realized that if you don’t have it inside you, it doesn’t matter if you are here or in Paris."

In 1931, Gregory worked on a team of sculptors who executed historical panels for the façade of a new state capitol building in Baton Rouge built during the administrations of Governor Huey Long. Other work from this period includes a head of Aesculapius on the Hutchinson Memorial Building in Tulane Medical Center, sculpture for Tulane University’s McAlister Auditorium and many portrait busts. From 1934 to 1937 Gregory taught ceramics at Newcomb College and later was an artist-in-residence and sculpture professor there.

Gregory is often credited with being one of the few women sculptors of her era to complete three public monuments.

In a statement written by Gregory in 1985 for her entry in Virginia Watson-Jones' survey book of Contemporary American Women Sculptors, Gregory explained: “In my portrait busts and monuments, I have attempted to maintain a strong tectonic quality while being primarily interested in portraying the sensitive, subtle quality of the individual.”

Critic response

Writing in the catalogue for A Retrospective Exhibition, Angela Gregory, Newcomb 1925, and A Collection of the Works of Selina E. Bres Gregory, Newcomb, 1896, Tulane Professor James Lamantia wrote of Angela Gregory: “Eschewing the overbearing rush toward abstraction so characteristic of the second quarter of our century, she had consistently embraced the natural image. The strength of this key decision she molds with her own personality, carrying it beyond the obvious influence of Bourdelle.” Lamantia continues: “Her collaborations with architects can only be hinted at in a gallery display, yet are necessary to recognize in any assessment of her work since they represent an involvement inculcate in the broader objectives of the grand tradition.”

Legacy

Gregory’s work has been exhibited at the Salon des Tuileries, at the National Gallery in Washington and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She is also represented in private collections and several museums.

In 1982 she was named Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French minister of culture. Tulane University and Newcomb College each named her outstanding alumna. At the time of her death she was one of the few women fellows of the National Sculpture Society.

Controversy In July 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd protests, Gregory's Henry Watkins Allen monument (1962) in Port Allen, Louisiana was criticized as a symbol of white supremacy. Activists asked that the monument be removed or contextualized, considering Allen's service in the Confederate States Army and as Governor of Louisiana during the American Civil War, and his ownership of slaves. As of 2025, the monument remained in place.