New York Architecture Images- Richard Morris Hunt Memorial

	New York Architecture Images- Central Park Richard Morris Hunt Memorial
Located on the perimeter of the Central Park and across from the Frick Museum, is this monument to Richard Morris Hunt an American architect of great prominence whose defining signature emulated the French Beaux-Arts style. Several blocks uptown, one can see a fine example of his artistic magnitude in the facade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Hunt’s legacy is celebrated by renowned sculptor Daniel Chester French, whose most renowned work is the gigantic seated figure of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Here, the setting for the sculptures is an exedra - a semicircular portico with a curved bench - done in neo-Renaissance style. At its center is a bust of Hunt, with the two allegorical statues of Architecture first and then Painting and Sculpture standing guard at both ends of the semicircular colonnade. Inscribed on tablets around the exedra are the names of each of the organizations in which Hunt played a major role.



Daniel Chester French was approached in 1896 by the Art Society of New York to design and create a monument to Richard Morris Hunt, a seminal figure in American architecture. Because of Hunt's involvement with painting and architecture, French decided to have the monument contain three sculptures: a bust of Hunt and two allegorical statues, each representing painting and sculpture, and architecture. The monument, which includes two benches and rows of columns, was dedicated on October 31, 1898 and the statues of Painting and Sclupture and Architecture were completed in 1900 and installed in 1901. The bust of Hunt rests on a pedestal which has the following engraved upon it: To RICHARD MORRIS HUNT October 31, 1828 July 3, 1895 In Recognition Of His Services To The Cause of Art In America This Memorial Was erected 1898 by The Art Society of New York The monument may be found in New York City on the east side of Central Park, at the intersection of Fifth Avenue between 70th and 71st Street.

The allegorical rendering of "Painting and Sculpture" is on the south (left facing) side of the Hunt Memorial. The statue is holding, in her left hand, a palatte and a small model of the footless, handless "Dionysos" taken from the east pediment of the Parthenon, and in her right hand, a sculptor's mallet is found. (photo and text Douglas Yeo).

The allegorical rendering of "Architecture" is on the north (right facing) side of the Hunt Memorial. She holds in her hands a model of one of Hunt's most famous works, the Adminstration Building from the 1893 World's Fair. (photo and text Douglas Yeo).
	Monument Beaux-Arts
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links	thanks to www.centralpark2000.com & www.centralparknyc.org and to Douglas Yeo, www.yeodoug.com