Edmond Thomas Quinn

Edmond Thomas Quinn (December 20, 1868 – September 9, 1929) was an American sculptor active from the Gilded Age to the Jazz Age, with work in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Portrait Gallery, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the National Gallery of Ireland. Among his sitters were Playwright Eugene O'Neill, Painter Leon Kroll, and architect Cass Gilbert. Among his outdoor sculptures visible today are Edwin Booth as Hamlet in Gramercy Park, composer Victor Herbert near the Naumburg Bandshell on the Central Park Mall, and baseball pioneer Harry Wright.

Education Quinn was born December 20, 1868, in Philadelphia, to John and Rosina McLaughlin Quinn. He studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts under Thomas Eakins. Following Eakins's February 1886 forced-resignation from PAFA, Quinn followed him to the Art Students League of Philadelphia, and later became that short-lived school's curator. In Paris he trained for a time as a sculptor in the studio of Jean Antoine Injalbert.

Career He exhibited regularly at the National Academy of Design, showing paintings in 1891, 1893, 1905, 1906 and 1907. He first showed his sculpture there in 1908, and annually for many years, usually portrait busts. He won a silver medal for his bronze sculpture of model Audrey Munson at the Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915. He also exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (paintings: 1891, 1894, 1897; sculptures: 1899, 1901, 1905–06, 1908–10, 1914–16, 1921, 1923, 1925–26, 1928, posthumously 1930), and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Edmond Quinn with Two Fencers (1880s), Circle of Thomas EakinsHe was elected an Associate of the National Academy of Design in 1920, and was a member of the National Sculpture Society, the Century Association, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Players Club, for whom he executed his statue of Booth.

Quinn was recognized as being a fine portraitist whose work "shows taste and conscience." His portrait busts include Franklin Hooper, Sylvester Malone, Edwin Markham, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Padraic Colum and Eugene O'Neill. His half-length, oil-on-canvas portrait of Attilio Piccirilli, the sculptor whose studio executed many works of American Beaux-Arts masters, is in the National Academy of Design, as are his painted portraits of Furio Piccirilli and Sherry E. Fry. The National Portrait Gallery has a large number of his portrait busts.

Death In May 1929, Quinn tried to kill himself by drinking poison. He was found drowned off Governors Island, New York City in September 1929, a suicide.

Quinn's papers are at Yale University.

Selected works Year Image Subject Place Location 1897 Baseball pioneer Harry Wright West Laurel Hill Cemetery Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania 1905 Mayor William Howard William Howard Memorial Chapel Williamsport, Pennsylvania 1908 Author Edgar Allan Poe (bust) Poe Cottage The Bronx, New York 1908 Author Edgar Allan Poe (plaster model) Poe Museum Richmond, Virginia 1908 Revolutionary War Memorial (bas relief) Kings Mountain National Military Park Blacksburg, South Carolina 1910 Zoroaster Brooklyn Museum (east facade) Brooklyn, New York 1911 Interior Sculptures Pittsburgh Athletic Association Building Pittsburgh, Pennsylanvia 1912 Figure of a Nymph Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, New York 1912 Attorney J. Edward Swanstrom (relief) Columbus Park (removed) Brooklyn, New York 1915 General Winfield S. Featherston (bust) Vicksburg National Military Park (outside) Warren County, Mississippi 1917 General John C. Pemberton Pemberton Circle Vicksburg, Mississippi 1918 Actor Edwin Booth Gramercy Park New York, New York 1920 Professor Franklin W. Hooper (bust) Brooklyn Museum Brooklyn, New York 1921 Victory, Great War Memorial Faneuil Park New Rochelle, New York 1922 Playwright Eugene O'Neill (bust) National Portrait Gallery Washington, D.C. 1924 Painter Leon Kroll (bust) Whitney Museum of American Art New York, New York 1925 Poet Padraic Colum (bust) Hugh Lane Gallery Dublin, Ireland c1925 Poet and Novelist James Stephens (bust) National Gallery of Ireland Dublin, Ireland 1926 Actor Edwin Booth (bust) Hall of Fame for Great Americans The Bronx, New York 1926 Chancellor James Kent (bust) Hall of Fame for Great Americans The Bronx, New York 1926 Architect Cass Gilbert Minnesota State Capitol St. Paul, Minnesota 1927 Composer-Conductor Victor Herbert (bust) Central Park Mall New York, New York 1927 Fire Chief William Francis Kenny (bas relief) Unknown 1927 Congressman Henry Clay National Capitol Park Caracas, Venezuela 1928 Painter James McNeill Whistler (bust) Hall of Remembrance, New York University New York, New York 1929 Dr. J. Marion Sims (bust) State Office Building Columbia, South Carolina 1929 Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (bust) Hall of Fame for Great Americans The Bronx, New York 1930 Founding Father John Quincy Adams (bust) Hall of Fame for Great Americans The Bronx, New York Paintings Year Subject Place Location 1895 Clown La Salle University Art Museum Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1911 Portrait of Attilio Piccirilli National Academy of Design New York, New York 1915 Portrait of Sherry Edmundson Fry National Academy of Design New York, New York 1919 Portrait of Furio Piccirilli National Academy of Design New York, New York

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