Cyrus Edwin Dallin : biography
Portrait of Dallin, 1899. Cyrus Edwin Dallin (November 22, 1861 – November 14, 1944) was an American sculptor best known for Native Americans subjects. He created more than 260 works, including the equestrian statue of Paul Revere in Boston, Massachusetts; the Angel Moroni atop Salt Lake Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah; and his most famous work, Appeal to the Great Spirit, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He was also an Olympic archer.
Biography
Dallin, the son of Thomas and Jane (Hamer) Dallin, was born in Springville, Utah, to a family then belonging to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). At age 19, he moved to Boston to study sculpture with Truman Howe Bartlett. He studied in Paris, with Henri Chapu and at the Académie Julian.
In 1883, he entered the competition for an equestrian statue of Paul Revere for Boston, Massachusetts. He won the competition and received a contract, but four versions of his model were rejected. The fifth version was accepted in 1899, but fundraising problems delayed the project for decades. The full-size statue was unveiled in 1940.
Dallin converted to Unitarianism, and initially turned down the offer to sculpt the angel Moroni for the spire of the LDS Salt Lake City Temple. He later accepted the commission and, after finishing the statue said, "My angel Moroni brought me nearer to God than anything I ever did."Levi Edgar Young, “The Angel Moroni and Cyrus Dallin,” Improvement Era, April 1953, 234. His statue became a symbol for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and was the model for other Angel Moroni statues on the spires of LDS Temples.
In Boston, he became a colleague of Augustus St. Gaudens and a close friend of John Singer Sargent. He married Vittoria Colonna Murray in 1891, and returned to Utah to work on The Angel Moroni (1893). He taught for a year at the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, while completing his Sir Isaac Newton (1895) for the Library of Congress. In 1897, he traveled to Paris, and studied with Jean Dampt. He entered a Don Quixote statuette in the Salon of 1897, and Medicine Man in the Salon of 1899 and the Exposition Universelle (1900). The couple moved to Arlington, Massachusetts in 1900, where they lived for the rest of their lives and raised three sons. From 1899 to 1941, he was a member of the faculty of Massachusetts Normal Art School (now the Massachusetts College of Art and Design).
At the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri, Dallin competed in archery, winning the bronze medal in the team competition. at www.databaseolympics.com He finished ninth in the Double American round and 12th in the Double York round.
Legacy
The Jefferson Cutter House in Arlington, Massachusetts is now a museum devoted to his works.http://www.dallin.org A local elementary school is named in his honor. More than 30 examples of his work are on display at the Springville Museum of Art, in Springville, Utah.
His papers are at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
The Dallin House at 253 S. 300 East in Springville, Utah and the Taylor-Dallin House in Arlington, Massachusetts are both listed on the National Register of Historic Places due to their association with Dallin.
