The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
Summer 1989, Volume 35, Number 3
Thomas L. Scharf, Editor

by Bruce Kamerling
Curator of Collections San Diego Historical Society

Sculpture Article ~ Images from this Article ~ The Sculptors

The Fight Over the Horn of Plenty  
Cover photo: Felix Peano’s high relief sculpture The Fight Over the Horn of Plenty decorated the corner tower of San Diego’s United States National Bank (built in 1912) at Second and Broadway. Peano adapted his design from a free-standing bronze group, The Fighters (1867) by Johan Peter Molin which is outside the entrance to the National Museum in Stockholm. Courtesy, San Diego History Center Title Insurance and Trust Photograph Collection.

El Cid Campeador  
San Diego’s best known public sculpture, Anna Hyatt Huntington’s El Cid Campeador,dedicated in 1930, dramatically guards the Plaza de Panama in Balboa Park. William Templeton Johnson designed the limestone base.

Dr. Schmitt's Dispensary on Fourth Avenue  
Dr. Schmitt’s Dispensary on Fourth Avenue, completed in 1888, featured decorative sculptures as part of its facade decoration.

Indian by Arthur Putnam  
In 1903, E. W. Scripps commissioned Arthur Putnam to produce five historical sculptures including Indian, shown here on its original site at Miramar Ranch. Only three of the bronzes were ever completed. Two of them, the Indian and Padre, were moved to Presidio Park in 1933 and finally donated to the San Diego History Center by the descendants of E. W. Scripps in 1976.

Alfonso Iannelli's modernistic sculptures  
Alfonso Iannelli’s modernistic sculptures decorate the corners of the Golden West Hotel on “G” Street. John Lloyd Wright under the supervision of Harrison Albright designed the building in 1913. Iannelli later worked for Wright’s father, Frank Lloyd Wright, on the famous Midway Gardens in Chicago.

California Building  
The Piccirilli Brothers of New York produced the sculptured frontispiece of the California Building for the 1915 Panama California Exposition. This famous family of sculptors did the actual marble carving on Daniel Chester French’s enormous figure of Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Jean Berman Cook-Smith's relief panels  
For the interior of the California Building, Jean Berman Cook-Smith created a series of relief panels depicting the life of the ancient Maya of Mexico. Some of the panels are still in place in the rotunda of the Museum of Man.

Merrell Gage's fountain relief  
Merrell Gage’s fountain relief of a young girl reading, executed in 1925, originally decorated the interior court of the La Jolla Library. Photograph courtesy the Athenaeum, La Jolla.

James Tank Porter's Ellen Browning Scripps Testimonial  
Dedicated on June 14, 1926, James Tank Porter’s Ellen Browning Scripps Testimonial in La Jolla was the first permanent free-standing public sculpture in San Diego.

San Diego Fine Arts Gallery  
At its inaugural exhibition, the San Diego Fine Arts Gallery (now Museum of Art) featured a collection of work by the Serbian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic.
* See note

The Spirit of CCC  
On May 19, 1936, film actress Bette Davis came to San Diego to help dedicated the sculpture The Spirit of CCC by John Palo Kangas at the exposition. The figure has since disappeared without a trace.

Four Cornerstones of American Democracy  
Frederick Schweigardt, official sculptor for the 1935 California Pacific International Exposition, stands next to his fountain Four Cornerstones of American Democracy. Althought in poor condition today, the fountain may still be seen in the atrium of the Balboa Park Club.

Spirit of California  
Towards the end of her life well-known American sculptors Anna Coleman Ladd had a studio at the Spanish Village in Balboa Park. While there, she produced this figure called Spirit of California which was exhibited with a group of her bronzes at the Fine Arts Gallery in 1937

religious figure  
In the early 1940s, Ruth Ball produced this religious figure for a local Catholic church.

Mother and Child  
Ruth Norton Ball exhibited her bronze Mother and Child at the “Contemporary American Sculpture” exhibition at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco in 1929. Photo courtesy San Diego Museum of Art.

St. Francis  
Isabelle Churchman puts finishing touches on her clay model for a figure of St. Francis which she later completed in onyx for the Francis Parker School.

Churchman sculpture yard  
In this view of the Churchman sculpture yard at Blythe (ca. 1940), Isabelle’s figure of St. Francis and Ed’s carving of a California bear for the Blythe border station can be seen in progress.

Isabelle Churchman's mahogany relief panels  
Isabelle Churchman’s mahogany relief panels depicting Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms (Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom from Want, Freedom from Fear) were produced as a war memorial for the Russ Auditorium at San Diego High School in 1944.

Charles Cris Cristadoro  
Local portrait painter Aloys Bohnen painted his friend the sculptor Charles “Cris” Cristadoro in the early 1920s. Unfortunately, a fire at Bohnen’s point Loma studio destroyed many of the painter’s works including this portrait.

allegorical groups by Charles Cristadoro  
When the Spreckels Theater first opened its doors in 1912, it featured an abundance of sculptured decorations including two tinted plaster allegorical groups by Charles Cristadoro.

Pinocchio  
After leaving San Diego, Cristadoro eventually found his way to the Walt Disney Studios where he became a character model artist. He created this figure of Pinocchio to assist the animators of the film.

William S. Hart  
Charles Cristadoro made the acquaintance of movie actor William S. Hart around 1917 and produced a number of statues of the film star. The most important of these was a life-size bronze of the city of Billings, Montana. Photograph courtesy the Western Heritage Center, Billings, Montana.

Spring Stirring and El Colorado  
Donal Hord used an air hammer to rough out his sculptures in diorite. This 1948 photograph shows him working on the figure Spring Stirring while the completed El Colorado can be seen in the foreground.

Angel of Peace  
For the American Battle Monuments Commission, Hord created a twelve foot tall Angel of Peace for the cemetery at Henri-Chapelle, Belgium, which contains the graves of Americans who died during the Battle of the Bulge.

Primavera  
In Primavera, carved in pink Tennessee marble in 1945, Hord depicted Winter as an elderly woman brushing out the hair of the new Spring.

Allen Hutchison  
Allen Hutchison in his San Diego studio about 1913 , surrounded by plaster casts of famous classical sculptures.

Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo  
At the request of the Order of Panama, Allen Hutchinson created this model for a proposed 150 foot tall monument commemorating Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo, discoverer of San Diego bay.

Alonzo Horton  
Hutchinson’s original plaster bust of Alonzo Horton, modeled from life in 1906, is now in the collection of the San Diego Historical Society; a gift of the Pioneer Society in 1930. A bronze cast was finally made in 1980 with funds provided by the Faye Dobbs Gonzalez Foundation

Orpheus and Eurydice  
Mabel Fairfax Karl’s 20″ tall redwood sculptures Orpheus and Eurydice, received the purchase prize from the museum in Houston in 1934. Photo courtesy The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

John D. Spreckels  
Felix Peano’s life-size relief panel of John D. Spreckels features symbols of Spreckles’ railroad empire: rails, trestle, a hammer and spike. What became of the sculpture is not known.

James Tank Porter's bust of Wortha Merritt  
James Tank Porter produced a clay portrait bust of Wortha Merritt about 1916. The piece was later carved in marble.

Porter modeled this family group  
While studying at the Beaux Arts Institute in New York, Porter modeled this family group as his entry in the Prix de Rome competition in 1916. He placed second behind Paul Jennewein.

Little Rabbit Girl  
Porter is best known for his portraits studies and figures of children such as Little Rabbit Girl, shown here (ca. 1924) in the original clay before bronze casting,

Arthur Putnam puts the finishing touches on a sculpture  
In his San Francisco studio Arthur Putnam puts the finishing touches on a sculpture of his favorite subject, the puma. Putnam made his studio in the hull of a sailing ship that had been abandoned in San Francisco Bay during the Gold Rush. As the shallow part of the bay filled in, these land-locked ships were converted to other uses.

clay model for Indian  
Here the larger than life-size clay model for Indian takes shape (ca. 1904).

Combat: Indian, Horse and Buffalo  
Combat: Indian, Horse and Buffalo is typical of Putnam’s highly charged studies of animals and men. Photo courtesy San Diego Museum of Art.

Lacemakers  
Julia Severance produced this bronze group Lacemakers in the loosely modeled style popularized by Auguste Rodin at the turn of the Century. Photo courtesy San Diego Museum of Art.

Anna Valentien's portrait of her husband  
While studying in France, Anna Valentien had the honor of having one of her sculptures, a bas-relief portrait of her husband, accepted for the Paris Salon of 1900. San Diego Historical Society, gift of Mavina McFeron, 1980.

Zim's bronze Portrait of My Father  
Zim’s bronze Portrait of My Father received a silver medal when it was exhibited at the 1916 exposition. It depicts Jacob Zimmerman who served as rabbi in San Diego. San Diego History Center, gift of Roger Zim, 1988.

Photograph of Marco Zim  
Photograph of Marco Zim taken from his employee pass for the Panama California Exposition, 1915.

Sample of sculptor's signatures  
Sample of sculptor’s signatures.

Sample of sculptor's signatures  
San Diego sculptor Edna May Scofiels (Halseth) modeled a figure of the Indian “Yellow Sky” which received a gold medal at the Panama-California Exposition.

 


* Note: The text of the Journal article was in error: Mestrovic was Croatian.

Back to the articles:

Early Sculpture and Sculptors in San Diego
The Sculptors